Garrett Blacknova
Codex Troopers
5618
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Posted - 2014.09.01 04:55:00 -
[1] - Quote
I recently got a gaming PC.
I don't have the disposable income to be making regularly-scheduled payments in order to have access to multiplayer gaming, and I have work which requires me to have a relatively up-to-date PC anyway. My old laptop was terrible and dying, so I got a new one that's actually up to par for gaming as well as suitable for my work needs.
This has resulted in much of the time I used to spend on the DUST forums being spent on forums for other games. I've also been playing Armored Core and a bunch of other games on the PS3 when I'm not on my PC. I've been active on forums for those games as well as for the PC games I'm interested in.
As for DUST, and Legion, I'm currently not really interested any more. I always had very few friends who played, but I stuck around because I enjoyed the game, appreciated CCP's plans for the game, and BECAUSE I THOUGHT THEY WERE BEING OPEN AND HONEST TO THEIR CONSOLE FANS LIKE THEY HAD BEEN WITH EVE ONLINE AND THEIR PC FANS.
After the Project Legion announcement, I stuck around for a while, but I didn't feel like they were doing what needed to be done. So far, THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ACTION has still not been taken by CCP. There has been no announcement of a planned PS4 version of the game, which is understandable. There has been no formal confirmation of no PS4 version though, which is an intentional ploy to keep paying players with no interest in making the move to PC under false pretenses. And more importantly, they've missed the single most important key element here: THERE HAS BEEN NO FORMAL APOLOGY for screwing over console players by promising "laser focused on PS3" and pushing that line about supporting consoles while the majority of the dev team was being redirected away from what was promised.
This was, and still is, blatantly dishonest, and in my opinion, bordering on fraudulent. A public formal apology is LONG overdue at this point.
Prior to coming back today for a look at the forums, I was planning to give CCP the benefit of the doubt, and coming back when Project Legion shows up. I've been intermittently looking into things, and seeing the expected minimum of effort being put into "updating" DUST (which seems more like simply dragging out its death than keeping it alive at this point).
There are precisely 3 things which I would NEED to see in order to have any - ANY - of my faith in CCP restored:
1. Public, formal apology for the failure to make the announcement of Project Legion at the proper time and in the proper manner.
2. Promise - AND DELIVER ON THE PROMISE - to add some form of player trading to DUST before Legion arrives. Even if it's as simple as a "give item" function to go along with giving ISK. A proper, but relatively basic, market structure would be preferred, and SHOULD be relatively easy to implement even with a limited team.
3. Promise - AND DELIVER - limited new content, including some form of PvE. There was PvE content being developed FOR DUST ON PS3 as far back as CLOSED BETA. I was here in closed beta. I've seen evidence of Rogue Drone models being worked on before the game was even in open beta, let alone the broken, unfinished mess that the game was on "release". THEY EXIST, and they have existed since BEFORE LEGION WAS PLANNED. There isn't valid reason to expect the PS3 to handle the scale of PvE content that will come out in Legion, but a LIMITED SCALE version, maybe with 6 player squads being able to fight in a relatively simple horde mode would be plenty.
Much of the content being developed for Legion is content that WAS ALREADY BEING DEVELOPED FOR DUST. Much of the content that Legion is expected to have SHOULD be possible on PS3. There are limits, there are things the PS3 simply can't, or won't, handle. There are ideas that belonged in DUST, and belong in Legion, which are simply too big for the PS3. I get that. Most of us do. But a HUGE portion of the vision for the game is TOTALLY VIABLE ON PS4. Yes, the full package might - ONLY MIGHT - be limited to the PC version. But there's a decent amount of content which could be managed on the PS3, if only in limited forms. Smaller scale, or just reskins of existing models, or other shortcuts to adding new content. There is a LOT more to work with on PS3 than what DUST is demonstrating.
Basically, the game needs to be made release-ready BEFORE it's allowed to die, AND the fans who have stuck with you this far DESERVE A LONG-OVERDUE APOLOGY. Seems not only simple, but really obvious to me that this should already have at least started to happen.
All that said, even the above will only go so far. If that happens, I'll be actively seeking entry into whatever beta testing I can gain access to for Project Legion - and I may seek that access anyway, but I won't let go of these issues on top of the issues I expect to see in Legion's beta phases.
If I play Legion, and it reaches an official release date without being release-ready, I'm going to walk away.
I might be playing Defiance (not that good, but free-to-play and available on PS3, takes similar amount of HDD space to DUST), I might be playing Destiny (also coming to PS3 and looking pretty good), and I might be playing countless other games on my PS3 and my PC. But I won't be playing DUST, or Legion, or EVE Online.
When I was planning to get a gaming PC, I had EVE in mind as one of the very few subscription-based games I might consider buying. After seeing how CCP have treated fans outside of that game compared to the experience within their "core" fanbase, I no longer want to support such blindly offensive elitism.
There is a sticky thread claiming to be answering our concerns. It doesn't. That should change. |