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John Demonsbane
Unorganized Ninja Infantry Tactics
4497
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Posted - 2014.11.11 14:52:00 -
[1] - Quote
I think that Kristoff mostly has it right. I doubt that Legion has been completely shelved, and I also suspect that they are very leery of releasing any information that is not ironclad given past issues with highly optimistic promises they could not deliver on.
CCP has a lot of issues, and (I don't play EvE so wouldn't know) if they really do need to gut certain parts of eve to get rid of legacy code, then logically that would be priority1, keeping their flagship (read: the only viable) property going is critical to keep the company solvent.
I was thinking about this myself the other day, after I very briefly considered buying a merc pack again. After flogging myself for being so foolish, I considered the same basic question: What does 1.9 mean?
Is it a cash grab? Well, yes, but that's not necessarily a sinister thing to do. As I've said before, CCP Shanghai may currently be 3 guys and a hamster wheel, but even hamster chowGäó costs money.
Is it a sign of good things to come? While I am an eternal optimist, it's a little naive to come to that conclusion yet.
Is it an improvement on the game we had? Absolu-freaking-lutely, and if nothing else I'll be glad of that.
Does it tell us anything about Legion? I'm going to go with no. I think that using the recent changes in Dust to be any kind of barometer about Legion is tea leaves and tarot cards. You can see what you want to see.
- Aeon Amadi The pessimist sees a dying IP (legion and dust combined) and a company trying to recoup whatever losses they can before scrapping the whole thing once it's no longer paying for it's own maintenance.
- The optimist gets a new patch, which was previously said not to be possible, and sees new life and actual investment into what was a dead-end game with no new content planned. They believe that further development is not only possible, but actually in the pipeline.
I think I'm in the middle. My best guess (which is worth as much as anyone else not working for CCP, which is to say, not a whole heck of a lot) is that Legion has not been canned, it's either on the back-burner due to more pressing issues with EvE development, or is on track but not fully greenlit for various reasons:
Think about it this way. You are CCP. Your big splash into the console market (really, any market that is not EvE) crashed and burned. You probably lost a lot of money; if not outright, at the very least revenue you planned on having when making your budget for upcoming years is gone. You make the hard but probably financially sound decision to scrap it and start over, but completely and utterly botch it, creating a PR disaster and angry fan base.
What's your next move? Job one is to un-alienate the fan base. Continue to **** them off and you may as well not bother making Legion to begin with. Easiest way to do that is to make cost-effective changes to Dust that improve our playing experience.
Job 2 is to right the ship and try to keep yourself from being a one-hit wonder and develop a successful second game. One thing you don't want to do is repeat past mistakes by over-promising or releasing a fundamentally broken product. Think about it: If Legion fails like Dust did, it's over. Nobody, whether they be players, investors, or upper management, is going to give them a third chance. So you have to get it right on day 1:
- Don't hype or release an unfinished game - Don't promise ANYTHING that is not already implemented and tested - Don't get yourself into an eternal nerf/buff cycle
How does Dust fit in? For one, it helps fund it. Thus the push to sell aurum. Two, since they run on the same engine, by far the easiest way to test your new assets is to have the Dust playerbase break them. You may or may not be happy with being a glorified playtester, but some people are probably fine with that if it means new toys in Dust and successful development of Legion.
(The godfather of tactical logistics)
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John Demonsbane
Unorganized Ninja Infantry Tactics
4497
|
Posted - 2014.11.11 14:53:00 -
[2] - Quote
reserved
(The godfather of tactical logistics)
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John Demonsbane
Unorganized Ninja Infantry Tactics
4499
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Posted - 2014.11.11 17:40:00 -
[3] - Quote
Aeon Amadi wrote: Just so we're clear, I never once said that either Dust 514 or Legion was dying. I said that they seemingly had no mid or long-term plan, that there isn't any transparency at all, and gave conclusions that can reasonably be drawn from the evidence given. I'm not a pessimist in the slightest (and I'd appreciate it if you didn't act as such), if anything I'm a hopeful optimist but I'm not certainly not brain-dead enough to reasonably believe that the situation is in any way good.
I'm not so sure I agree with your self-assesment of optimism considering the underlined portion, lol.
Aeon Amadi wrote:That aside, by not repeating one mistake (over-promising) they're making the exact same mistake that we had in the first place (no communication). Neither of which are good for the game, the community, the studio, or the franchise. Agreed. But we do know that CCP does overreaction best, right?
Aeon Amadi wrote:As for the nearly finished content bit - we have every reason to assume that's the case; especially considering the recent utilization of the Caldari Production Facility which we were seeing near-completed screenshots of back in November 2013 when CCP LogicLoop was still with the company. Hell, it was -supposed- to come out in 1.7/1.8 (I can't remember which). To completely ignore that and say that it's "dishonest" is naive.
I didn't mean to imply I thought you were dishonest, so my apologies if that's how it came across. I was stating that in the pessimistinc scenario I outlined, the logical assumption would be that CCP was being dishonest.
Aeon Amadi wrote:Dust 514 -DOES- have an expiration date. You can try and pretend that it doesn't and that CCP doesn't have some end-goal to turn off but it's absolutely, 100% the truth: There are no plans to provide continued, active development for the game. There are no plans to port it to the PS4. It -is- going to die someday, be it next year, five years from now, hell it could be when the PS5 is released... But it's more logical to assume that since they're already working on Legion, that at some point they're going to cease -all- focus on Dust 514 for the betterment of their own progression. That is not unreasonable for them to do. Either way, Dust 514 only lives as long as it's playerbase keeps playing it, whether Legion is out or not. That was the entire point of what I was trying to illustrate; not some "herp derp Dust 514 is dying" speech.
I'm not stupid, Aeon. Of course it has an expiration date, and I very much doubt it's anywhere near as long as 5 years. I also realize quite clearly that this is not a "Dust is dying" thread or even a "Dust" thread at all. It's a CCP thread (primarily concering Legion)
I happened to be giving the same topic some thought recently and I'm addressing the part where people read into the recent Dust development as some kind of clear indication of the long term strategy, Dust's lifetime, or what's going on with Legion, good or bad. You know, like all the questions you underlined at the end of the OP.
To wit:
Aeon Amadi wrote:The catch here is that if Dust 514 -DOES- start getting development (which looks to be increasingly likely as of late) then it really does meant there is no mid or long-term plan to keep the studio in action.
I'm sure CCP does have "a" plan, whether or not it's a firm plan, a good plan, or even a realistic plan is another matter. Whatever the plan is, I don't think that the existence of 1.9 (or all these BPO's) necessarily tells us a whole hell of a lot about it other than CCP sees come kind of value in improving Dust. Whether it's purely for short-term financial gain or as part of the larger "New Eden FPS" plan is not something we can conclude at this point, IMO.
(The godfather of tactical logistics)
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