DUST Search - Dev teams EVE/DUST514 unbalanced(editorial)

Iron Wolf Saber wrote:

Severance Pay wrote:

Took it upon myself to play EVE after I took a break from DUST514. EVE is a beautiful and fun game, I have to tip my hat to CCP. It really put things into perspective for me with DUST514. I have now a greater appreciation for CCP and the work that they do, but at the same time I am witness to what they are capable. Many of us have already established that their progress demonstrated with DUST514 is bafflingly below par, to put it mildly.

EVE is about to release another expansion, Rubicon. I couldn't believe it, "Didn't they just release an expansion?". So I did some research, an CCP had released Odyssey in June, right before Uprising, then patched it in September to completion. I saw the patch notes for Rubicon and there is a ton of things being added and changed. It's no less than 15 pages of notes, the combined number of pages of all the updates DUST514 has received in 2 years.

I would like to summarize and say that hiring a production manager was a step in the right direction, but it seems the dev staff working on DUST514 is about half the size of the staff working on EVE. It must be, there is no way they have the same people in quality and quantity working on DUST514.

Please pass my thoughts onto DUST514 staff, thanks.

Actually about a quater of the staff but none the less they're trying to get more folks in to help out with the game.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother

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Severance Pay Krullefor Organization Minmatar Republic 961	Posted - 2013.11.16 19:41:00 - [1] - Quote Took it upon myself to play EVE after I took a break from DUST514. EVE is a beautiful and fun game, I have to tip my hat to CCP. It really put things into perspective for me with DUST514. I have now a greater appreciation for CCP and the work that they do, but at the same time I am witness to what they are capable. Many of us have already established that their progress demonstrated with DUST514 is bafflingly below par, to put it mildly. EVE is about to release another expansion, Rubicon. I couldn't believe it, "Didn't they just release an expansion?". So I did some research, an CCP had released Odyssey in June, right before Uprising, then patched it in September to completion. I saw the patch notes for Rubicon and there is a ton of things being added and changed. It's no less than 15 pages of notes, the combined number of pages of all the updates DUST514 has received in 2 years. I would like to summarize and say that hiring a production manager was a step in the right direction, but it seems the dev staff working on DUST514 is about half the size of the staff working on EVE. It must be, there is no way they have the same people in quality and quantity working on DUST514. Please pass my thoughts onto DUST514 staff, thanks. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother
Iron Wolf Saber Den of Swords 10378	Posted - 2013.11.18 10:06:00 - [2] - Quote Severance Pay wrote: Took it upon myself to play EVE after I took a break from DUST514. EVE is a beautiful and fun game, I have to tip my hat to CCP. It really put things into perspective for me with DUST514. I have now a greater appreciation for CCP and the work that they do, but at the same time I am witness to what they are capable. Many of us have already established that their progress demonstrated with DUST514 is bafflingly below par, to put it mildly. EVE is about to release another expansion, Rubicon. I couldn't believe it, "Didn't they just release an expansion?". So I did some research, an CCP had released Odyssey in June, right before Uprising, then patched it in September to completion. I saw the patch notes for Rubicon and there is a ton of things being added and changed. It's no less than 15 pages of notes, the combined number of pages of all the updates DUST514 has received in 2 years. I would like to summarize and say that hiring a production manager was a step in the right direction, but it seems the dev staff working on DUST514 is about half the size of the staff working on EVE. It must be, there is no way they have the same people in quality and quantity working on DUST514. Please pass my thoughts onto DUST514 staff, thanks. Actually about a quater of the staff but none the less they're trying to get more folks in to help out with the game. CPM 0 Secretary Omni-Soldier Specialist Current Theme \\= Advanced Scrambler Rifle =// Unlocked
Severance Pay Krullefor Organization Minmatar Republic 962	Posted - 2013.11.19 00:06:00 - [3] - Quote Iron Wolf Saber wrote: Severance Pay wrote: Took it upon myself to play EVE after I took a break from DUST514. EVE is a beautiful and fun game, I have to tip my hat to CCP. It really put things into perspective for me with DUST514. I have now a greater appreciation for CCP and the work that they do, but at the same time I am witness to what they are capable. Many of us have already established that their progress demonstrated with DUST514 is bafflingly below par, to put it mildly. EVE is about to release another expansion, Rubicon. I couldn't believe it, "Didn't they just release an expansion?". So I did some research, an CCP had released Odyssey in June, right before Uprising, then patched it in September to completion. I saw the patch notes for Rubicon and there is a ton of things being added and changed. It's no less than 15 pages of notes, the combined number of pages of all the updates DUST514 has received in 2 years. I would like to summarize and say that hiring a production manager was a step in the right direction, but it seems the dev staff working on DUST514 is about half the size of the staff working on EVE. It must be, there is no way they have the same people in quality and quantity working on DUST514. Please pass my thoughts onto DUST514 staff, thanks. Actually about a quater of the staff but none the less they're trying to get more folks in to help out with the game. Trying? Help out? Delegating authority in the form of favors is a very ineffective leadership strategy. My bosses say "Yo, do this and that. Now. Then see me after cuz I need you to do something else." When you say "Trying to get people to help out." I picture someone begging for assistance. Please rephrase it so CCP doesn't seem incompetent to me." We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother
Nova Knife Seituoda Taskforce Command Caldari State 2131	Posted - 2013.11.19 07:36:00 - [4] - Quote Severance Pay wrote: Trying? Help out? Delegating authority in the form of favors is a very ineffective leadership strategy. My bosses say "Yo, do this and that. Now. Then see me after cuz I need you to do something else." When you say "Trying to get people to help out." I picture someone begging for assistance. Please rephrase it so CCP doesn't seem incompetent to me." Most of time it's as simple as "It's a long and stupidly crazy hiring process because they're in CHINA and getting everyone a work visa can take more time than is reasonable sometimes." CCP -is- hiring new people *(Or so we're told) but they can't simply hire a dude and say "be here next week" and have it all work out.
Iron Wolf Saber Den of Swords 10396	Posted - 2013.11.19 09:03:00 - [5] - Quote For example one of the more recent CCP hires had visa problems and had to get a new one from the government and it nearly delayed him 2 whole weeks. Hence Trying Doing something beyond your control of influence. Failure is an option given to you not one of your choosing. CPM 0 Secretary Omni-Soldier Specialist Current Theme \\= Advanced Scrambler Rifle =// Unlocked
Severance Pay Krullefor Organization Minmatar Republic 962	Posted - 2013.11.19 14:29:00 - [6] - Quote Nova Knife wrote: Severance Pay wrote: Trying? Help out? Delegating authority in the form of favors is a very ineffective leadership strategy. My bosses say "Yo, do this and that. Now. Then see me after cuz I need you to do something else." When you say "Trying to get people to help out." I picture someone begging for assistance. Please rephrase it so CCP doesn't seem incompetent to me." Most of time it's as simple as "It's a long and stupidly crazy hiring process because they're in CHINA and getting everyone a work visa can take more time than is reasonable sometimes." CCP -is- hiring new people *(Or so we're told) but they can't simply hire a dude and say "be here next week" and have it all work out. Yikes, that really makes sense. Then it makes working in China a bit senseless now. Now I have to ask why they insist on sending the dev team to Singapore if they know they will encounter problems like work visas and um a boat festival holiday? We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother
Jack Vanus Brimstone Tactical Covert Intervention 23	Posted - 2013.11.24 23:03:00 - [7] - Quote Nova Knife wrote: Severance Pay wrote: Trying? Help out? Delegating authority in the form of favors is a very ineffective leadership strategy. My bosses say "Yo, do this and that. Now. Then see me after cuz I need you to do something else." When you say "Trying to get people to help out." I picture someone begging for assistance. Please rephrase it so CCP doesn't seem incompetent to me." Most of time it's as simple as "It's a long and stupidly crazy hiring process because they're in CHINA and getting everyone a work visa can take more time than is reasonable sometimes." CCP -is- hiring new people *(Or so we're told) but they can't simply hire a dude and say "be here next week" and have it all work out. Suggested course of action Step one: Move the production studio out of china (yes it could cost some more, but its worth it) Step two: hire people to make it awesome now that the ridiculous Chinese Visa requirements are no longer an obstacle. Step three: there is no step three Step four: profit.
Nova Knife Seituoda Taskforce Command Caldari State 2162	Posted - 2013.11.25 01:32:00 - [8] - Quote @ Above : It's not even China. It's a problem for most dev studios anywhere, getting people a work Visa for /any/ country can be a long and arduous process, complicated and delayed for any number of reasons. Then there is the process of that person finding a place to live and actually immigrating to the country in question, proper company indoctrination before they can start working in earnest, etc. In the case of CCP... It's around 3-6 months for a lot of the people I've spoken to for them to actually be "In office and working" after the initial point of being hired, unless they actually live in the country in question.
Severance Pay Krullefor Organization Minmatar Republic 965	Posted - 2013.11.25 04:39:00 - [9] - Quote At some point or another somebody in their team has to say, "There has got to be a better way." Just wondering if they are going to find it. It is hard for me or any of us to accept these excuse, because these problems are not stopping other production companies. Another thing that I don't want to lose attention is that all of DUST514's patch notes from closed beta to now are not as long as a single expansion from EVE. Does that mean that DUST514 has been understaffed since closed beta? Can't we all just put EVE on pause and get everyone to focus their efforts on getting DUST514 on track? I'm playing EVE and I don't feel like there is much more to do with it until DUST514 starts catching up. Your thoughts? We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother
Justicar Karnellia Ikomari-Onu Enforcement Caldari State 157	Posted - 2013.11.25 15:50:00 - [10] - Quote I think in an ideal world they could throw a huge number of devs at the project until it reached the same quality as EVE and were churning out expansions every six months for Dust 514, but from a business perspective I think that this would be untenable. EVE online is the number one cash generator for CCP - alone the company generates over a percent of Icelandic GDP - pretty impressive for a single company. Remember though that Iceland has its own problems - notably that it is under capital controls which prevents expatriation of funds overseas, so hiring workers even in their headquarters is a problem for CCP. Free to play MMO's are still a new business model. In CCP's business plan, they probably anticipated a loss in the first few years (most businesses are loss making the first couple of years), and there's no need to deviate from this plan unless there is exceptional growth. As you can see for yourself, the lukewarm response to the game and current player numbers are probably on par or below par for what they expected, so they don't want to throw extra manpower at the project just yet and will just stick with whatever their initial business projections were. Losing their EP (Executive producer), for whatever reason, slowed down the development of the game somewhat as there's no "helm" of the ship and a lot of what they were doing afterwards was stop-loss. The aforementioned visa troubles in China are notorious - I've seen first hand the difficulties it can cause. There is no shortage of local IT talent in Shanghai but keep in mind it has a large expatriate population anyway and you cannot work there without visa sponsorship (like most expatriate destinations, think Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc.) I too am frustrated at the snail's pace and lack of clear roadmap. I'm hanging in there because it is brimming with potential, and the messages from the CPM and CCP seem to be that they are committed to making it better, which is a good sign in itself. If they suddenly started scaling back resources in the Shanghai office or slowing down the patch cycle, this would ring alarm bells, but they aren't, so I remain cautiously optimistic.

Severance Pay Krullefor Organization Minmatar Republic 965	Posted - 2013.11.25 19:18:00 - [11] - Quote I see, you make a good point. I understand now the tenuous situation that CCP is in. I hope they can find a way to overcome soon so that we don't have to suffer any longer. I eagerly lay in wait for the progression of DUST514 towards the vision of CCP. Thank you for explaining the conflict that is blocking DUST514 from proper balance, consistent updates, and fresh content. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother
Iron Wolf Saber Den of Swords 10762	Posted - 2013.11.25 20:35:00 - [12] - Quote Severance Pay wrote: I see, you make a good point. I understand now the tenuous situation that CCP is in. I hope they can find a way to overcome soon so that we don't have to suffer any longer. I eagerly lay in wait for the progression of DUST514 towards the vision of CCP. Thank you for explaining the conflict that is blocking DUST514 from proper balance, consistent updates, and fresh content. Well the New EP is at the studio now so well see what he can do. CPM 0 Secretary Omni-Soldier Specialist Current Theme \\= Advanced Scrambler Rifle =// Unlocked
Spectral Clone Dust2Dust. Top Men. 625	Posted - 2013.11.26 16:32:00 - [13] - Quote Would be interesting to see how many engineers/artists/programmers CCP has hired for the dust team the last year and what their expansion plans are, eg current numbers and future numbers. My hope for this game greatly depend on how fast CCP can hire people and start delivering quality instead of knee jerk reactions and patches where one problem appears and a multiple others are surfaced. KDR > ALL ME > KDR ME > ALL
mollerz Minja Scouts 1076	Posted - 2013.12.02 02:00:00 - [14] - Quote @Nova Knife & @ IWS, There is no way you guys have the full story. You have to be assuming a lot. Why do they have an arduous VISA process? An office where you hire programming talent in another country so you can save on your bottom line typically works as such- you have one or two managers from the Corp HQ country go through the VISA process (which is long and arduous that one time), procure and open the office, and then hire local programmers in Shanghai. Where are all of these supposed VISA issues coming from? You are suggesting that they opened an office in Shanghai specifically to open an office in Shanghai because of it's location if they are hiring people in other countries and exporting them to a foreign country.... I'll just stop there. But do you see what I mean? that makes no sense. The main issues with dust: big time ****** coding zero QA. the sheer utter absence of it is quite a feat. Not a strong enough project lead to hit their project milestones. lack of proper workforce god knows what else could be going on. there could be wicked interoffice politics/bad blood, IP theft issues, horrible infrastructure issues, underfunded technical tools, etc. At what point is Shanghai more of an expensive experiment versus something that would presumably be a cost saving strategy? Can't they find programming talent in Europe? Iceland? #shittycoding
Justicar Karnellia Ikomari-Onu Enforcement Caldari State 185	Posted - 2013.12.03 10:11:00 - [15] - Quote China is well known for it's tortuous visa process - a member of my family had to go through it himself and it wasn't fun at all. It's not overly complicated, it's just bureacratic and time consuming. Having said that, it seems CCP has realised this is an issue over there since they are currently looking for a HR manager: Jobs in CCP shanghai office I can live with these kinds of issues, I'd just wish we had a clearer roadmap - of course this is a shared frustration - you just have to read the CPM comments to understand they are wrestling with the same issues - speaking of which, I noticed their weekly statements dried up some time ago?
mollerz Minja Scouts 1109	Posted - 2013.12.04 22:50:00 - [16] - Quote Justicar Karnellia wrote: China is well known for it's tortuous visa process - a member of my family had to go through it himself and it wasn't fun at all. It's not overly complicated, it's just bureacratic and time consuming. Why not open the office in their home country if they are going to open up shop in a foreign country just so they can import employees through an arduous VISA process. Smart business opens up in Shanghai to hire people from Shanghai- thus you don't have an arduous VISA process. Is this really how CCP does ****? I highly doubt it. #shittycoding


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