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CELESTA AUNGM
Kang Lo Directorate
Gallente Federation
166
   |
Posted - 2014.05.09 15:14:00 -
[1] - Quote
Please forward this to the CEO of Dust 514 and Staff:
The GÇ£unveilingGÇ¥ of Project Legion at the Fanfest keynote speech, and the attempts to create an enthusiastic outlook for DustGÇÖs future without disclosing concrete (but business-private) predictions for Legion, have fed a dooming wildfire that I am going to extricate from by terminating my participation in these Dust forums indefinitely.
I also wonGÇÖt be joining the prospective community that plays Legion on PC, so your LegionGÇÖs future birth is likely to spell my two merc-charactersGÇÖ eventual deaths via account-termination. This statement is not intended as malice, nor are my following words.
But IGÇÖd like to make an earnest, though necessarily long, tribute to Dust 514, and offer a perception-change for Dust 514, both of which I havenGÇÖt seen expressed on this forum, and I hope what I write here can take root and live with CCP for the next 10 years.
 ONE... [the CCP achievement to be proud of, and not frustrated with]
The two years of Beta, and one year of release/updating, have brought a game to the Console platform that is stellar and unprecedented in ways that your PC-established teams may have no way of perceiving, and is only easily appreciated by console veterans better than your PC-established teams see:
 An aim-assist in an FPS that is not only aligns with the imagined technology of the game, but forces the best gunners and the worst gunners to meet each other with near-to-equal targeting-skill.
A game mechanic that is regularly tweaked and re-addressed to help balance GÇ£playersGÇÖ BEHAVIORGÇ¥ as they use the available gear and guns, recognizing for the first time that balancing the strengths and GEAR alone (as classic fps games always do), isnGÇÖt really GÇ£balancingGÇ¥ at all in those other games we played.
Diligently repeatedly re-scripted the mechanics to deter various farming, running-n-gunning, pogo-hopping, and role-abusers...making this clearly the first console game to acknowledge the point of view of many FPS players that these player-antics were unfair GÇ£cheatingGÇ¥ techniques used in our games for decades.
A free-to-customize arrangement of GÇ£suitsGÇ¥ that does NOT fit players into GÇ£ROLESGÇ¥ if they donGÇÖt want to. The complaints of new players only shows how entrenched weGÇÖve been in having a console game hold our hands during through gameplay and limit individual immersion. Thanks to Dust so many of us truly enjoy having a role-adjustable FPS at last!!
Encouragement of true GÇ£team-cooperationGÇ¥ to win a match. (Countless companies have always marketed their games as being GÇ£Team-basedGÇ¥ strategy games, but Dust is arguably the only console game that was serious about being played with true GÇ£teamworkGÇ¥ as a tool, and opening up a whole new game skill called SOCIAL/TEAM play,...learning and still growing!)
Many of the players who discuss Dust PROUDLY admit that they are GÇ£AWFUL at the game, but LOVE to play it daily!GÇ¥
Many of the pundits who openly GÇ£hateGÇ¥ and Dust, are players whoGÇÖve have collected more than 50 million SP, and are still playing for more. I doubt that any other game has ever gotten such great hidden compliments?
Dust 514 is a never-before original in console-fps, in its density of progression, long grind, complexity-vs-mastery, overlapping layers of menu and data management, and more. They are things that console gamers (PS3 OR others) required a ton of discomfort and settling down to get used to before they liked it, because frankly NO other game developer has given these concepts to us.
I thank CCP for having impressed me with their boldness from the start with Dust 514, and IGÇÖm hoping other console game developers will capture some of the concepts IGÇÖve listed above, and cause console titles to evolve from this point and not be the same ever again.
....But that wonGÇÖt happen if Dust 514 is allowed to be categorized as some sort of failure.
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CELESTA AUNGM
Kang Lo Directorate
Gallente Federation
166
|
Posted - 2014.05.09 15:31:00 -
[2] - Quote
TWO [the narrowness of a creatorGÇÖs dream can be the greatest threat to his creation]
I believe itGÇÖs easy for any team of people who work microscopically-close to a project nearly 24/7, to mistakenly fail to rate their work as monumentally successful with a list of never-before-done advances to its credit,... and instead rate their own work as unsuccessful and needing to be redone due to the two or three valued tasks they are still struggling to accomplish....
...And I worry that this is your internal own perception of your product Dust 514, in spite of the upbeat words you try to use among the forums.
We as console players have not helped give you an easy road.  There is a old (maybe no longer breathing and kicking) prejudice between PC and Console gamers that PC originated from a tradition of GÇ£cerebralGÇ¥ and GÇ£strategyGÇ¥ energy in their games, while the Console built a formula for a GÇ£rapid-eye movementGÇ¥ and GÇ£little-time to analyzeGÇöjust reload and breach the doorGÇ¥ attitude for its games.
Maybe the shock you reported at finding that PS3 players often burned through some Dust progression paths in GÇ£daysGÇ¥ instead of your anticipated GÇ£monthsGÇ¥, and the amazing short TTK and incredible equipment loss over time you found (playersGÇÖ willingness to impulsively waste clone lives/equipment instead of using cover and strategy more?), illustrates this sort of difference... a different mindset and experience-expectation that Consolers have from PCers (...differences that I actually think made GÇ£consoleGÇ¥ more appropriate for the slay-for-hire lifestyle being crafted in Dust ).
We as console players have also learned first-hand that pinnacles and leaps in graphics that some console titles had over other titles, didnGÇÖt make them nearly as satisfying to play as some of the console games with unimpressive graphics that could be criticized and lampooned all day.
There is an argument within the console populace that Tension, Impact, Sense of Immediacy felt while playing a good console titles can trump the desire for pinnacle graphics, and that may be the reason why many of us turn to GÇ£consoleGÇ¥ as our solitary choice for gaming, and view a PC for business tasking only.
In Dust, that GÇ£Tension or ImpactGÇ¥ has to be replaced by words like GÇ£ViciousnessGÇ¥ or GÇ£BrutalityGÇ¥, because the exciting anxiousness of feeling exposed and trapped on a spot when under fire was increased THAT much higher in Dust's environment!
This level of player-feeling could only be accomplished on the console platform, and in this respect, GÇ£consoleGÇ¥ WAS the right gamble for CCP to go with.
With pristine graphic capability and the ability to immerse itself and get enamoured with visual theatrics (like more elaborate trees and mushroom cloud explosion effects), Legion on PC is something I foresee becoming a prettier-LOOKING fps, but a more sedate and restrained FEELING fps, leaving only your goals of player-scheming, social chatting and item-exchanging that are standard from todayGÇÖs PC titles.
It's a recipe that works great for vast field-of-view open-air operas like EVE Online. When that recipe is tried on a GÇ£walking experienceGÇ¥ on the surface of a fighting arena, weGÇÖve seen it create a pace thatGÇÖs somewhat GÇ£detached from danger and immediacyGÇ¥ , such as Warcraft.
Warcraft is arguably a great game, but too sedate to provide the GÇ£Impact-tensionGÇ¥ that I received in my past console games (or I should say proudly, thanks to Dust, provide the level of GÇ£ViciousnessGÇ¥ that I hope to start seeing in future console titles). |
CELESTA AUNGM
Kang Lo Directorate
Gallente Federation
166
|
Posted - 2014.05.09 15:43:00 -
[3] - Quote
THREE: [I have a suggestion for developing an Identity for Legion, that wonGÇÖt mean re-doing/replacing Dust 514]
I wonGÇÖt be a participant of Legion.
I will be happy for you if it becomes the definition of success that you scripted in your minds for Dust.
But I will be much happier for CCP and the New-Eden gamer communities if:
 EVE-Online remained the mother of sandbox MMO, highlighting planets and valued resources in New Eden via pure spaceship travel/industry/combat.
Dust be advanced further to the level of being the overtly-combat MMO for Eve-Online CapsuleerGÇÖs conquest of surfaces in New Eden, existing simply as a NON-sandbox, NON-looter game (strictly driven through battle-contracts, chat, module-trade market transfers with other Dust-to-Legion players, and ISK-only transfers with Capsuleers).
and Legion became a SANDBOX-driven MMO game, where players sandbox on foot and loot any surface BEFORE OR AFTER a Capsuleer-Dust contract/activity is taking place there (perhaps never DURING), can participate in Capsuleer/Dust contract-battles only peripheral ways, but is designed primarily to freely loot the resources that Dust-mercs and EVE-Capsuleers individually value but canGÇÖt scoop up in their two respective games (and therefore have to socialize with Legion players to acquire at a price).
I believe this 3-way coexistence is very possible, and if you havenGÇÖt thought of some arrangement like this before, I want to hope that you do think of using it as you decide an identity for Legion to evolve into.
 IGÇÖm not against you going ahead with any GÇ£Legion-ishGÇ¥ game youGÇÖve chosen. IGÇÖm simply suggesting you do not need to have one game gradually hand over all its assets, its growth, then eventually its life, to the other game.
Sometimes you hear an author explain how he wrote his successful novel, how he set out to write a story with characters who do GÇ£Y and XGÇ¥,... but by the time the story is complete and the publisher runs with it, the GÇ£STORYGÇ¥ has taken control of his pen, the author finds his characters doing GÇ£Z and CGÇ¥, and the book is published and becomes a popular success. 
...The author doesnGÇÖt hope to un-write his story, just because his characters took hold of their own evolution. He feels the characters he wrote are now GÇ£aliveGÇ¥, and he knows he must respect them.
Dust has been an extra-ordinary journey, has broken some of the most powerful FPS-game prejudices that many laughing players argued were too entrenched be broken, and is going to stick in minds even if the game stops moving forward. In all its time I have enjoyed and admired how its game devs never reacted to any of the obstacles by GÇ£giving up efforts to further advance, turning around, and going back to the front door to try their design over againGÇ¥.
...If Dust discontinues all efforts to at least perfect the stable battle-contract Plantery Conquest link with EVE (which in my opinion is the final 10% of its ESSENTIAL journey),...if Legion is used to achieve your vision of GÇ£Dust done the RIGHT wayGÇ¥ (instead of Legion attempting to be a respectfully-separate, stand-alone New Eden activity),... then IGÇÖll know that CCP has imagined that itGÇÖs failed, has turned around and gone back.
And thatGÇÖs something that, in all of DustGÇÖs challenging evolution, IGÇÖve never seen your team do. |
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