Neotokyo Production Report

[Evo]

[br]

[br]The Neotokyo team have released a Production Report which 'will present a snapshot of the current state of development for NEOTOKYO.'[br]The team plan to provide updates a week apart, but as ever real life may come first for them, so don't be afraid if it is a bit longer between updates.[br]The first part of the Report which can be found here gives an introduction to what these Reports will do, and some nice background info on the story.[br]The focal point of the first Section of the Report is on Player Models providing information on the two sides involved in Neotokyo and each of the three classes.

 

[Harryz]

Haven't heard much from the mod apart from my brother sent me some music tracks of Neotokyo and its awesome.

 

[Mess]

The models are a bit samey, but top-quality nonetheless.

 

[Gusdor]

snore

 

[aku ankka]

Melon camouflage! :rolling:

 

[Asuka]

Dont know much about these guys. Will keep a eye on them tho.

 

[Dodo]

Finally... MEDIA!! Good work guys !
<3 NeoTokyo.

-dodo

 

[DjBourgeoisie]

snore

pushBAK) gotta love when 3 years of your life are reduced to a forum comment of "snore" lol

 

[gato51]

hey Gusdor...if you really work on a mod you know how tough it is keeping a project going when the team has never met each other, is spread out over the planet, and have real life priorities...for you to simply comment '*snore*' that's just weak.

 

[DuB]

I really enjoyed playing the UT 2004 mod of this... let's hope this version is good too.

 

[Rebel Racer]

The image is too big for the main page, and is squashing the side menus.

 

[UseAbuse]

*puts mod on watch list*

 

[Javert]

*was taken off watch list when they switched engines. will re-consider*

 

[DjBourgeoisie]

*was taken off watch list when they switched engines. will re-consider*

Nt was never intended to be a ut2k4 mod, but when hl2 was delayed, it was developed on the ut2k4 engine to test the concept and ideas, but it was always intended on being a source total conversion.

 

[63]

hey Gusdor...if you really work on a mod you know how tough it is keeping a project going when the team has never met each other, is spread out over the planet, and have real life priorities...for you to simply comment '*snore*' that's just weak.

He did work on a mod... that one that nobody plays.

How's your cat doing? The one with no hair.

 

[FriedchikenCamo]

He did work on a mod... that one that nobody plays.

While the "snore" comment was a bit harsh (and judgemental), I think that most people get the point, so there's no need to make personal attacks on each others' mods anymore. ;(

I think most people understand that graphics and art only support gameplay, so people will need more information about the actual gameplay before they can accurately determine whether the mod warrants their interest.

But it's nice to see the models actually standing around in the engine. Hopefully gameplay info will arrive soon.

 

[63]

While the "snore" comment was a bit harsh (and judgemental), I think that most people get the point, so there's no need to make personal attacks on each others' mods anymore. ;(

Gusdor is always bitching about something. I have yet to see him post a positive comment.

 

[FriedchikenCamo]

Gusdor is always bitching about something. I have yet to see him post a positive comment.

Well, that's a shame, as such inter-mod insults reflect poorly on the developers themselves, despite their respective talents.

I hope the Hidden mod continues to improve greatly. It's always nice to choose among excellent modifications, rather than be forced to play one dominant one.

On the other hand, give the Neotokyo guys more time to work on their stuff. Speed of release is not a good measure of quality, and the Radi-8 team seems to want a first release that hits the mark.

 

[Javert]

Nt was never intended to be a ut2k4 mod, but when hl2 was delayed, it was developed on the ut2k4 engine to test the concept and ideas, but it was always intended on being a source total conversion.

I know, I don't hold it against you, I was only wondering when you guys would be back.

 

[Grey]

I know, I don't hold it against you, I was only wondering when you guys would be back.

The Shaolin Monastery we live at doesn't have internet :O .

 

[Gusdor]

pushBAK) gotta love when 3 years of your life are reduced to a forum comment of "snore" lol

the key to my comment was '3 years'. Tired of waiting, you know?

 

[FriedchikenCamo]

the key to my comment was '3 years'. Tired of waiting, you know?

Fair enough, but remember that most mods are done on people's spare time, meaning that development speed depends on the lifestyles of the developers. If you are getting impatient of waiting, just go do something else, but calling people out on a labor of love just seems cruel if you have nothing else to say.

How would you feel if a lot of people playing Hidden just emailed you, and said that your mod sucks, because for all those years of waiting, they only had fun for one hour? It may a common reality for most modifications, but it won't hurt to keep such comments to yourself. Sometimes just developing a game is all you need to be happy, regardless of what others think, assuming that the project is not going to bankrupt you and cause the banks to hunt you down.

On the other hand, if it took 3 years and all Radi-8 was 18 player models and one map, with gameplay a carbon copy of CSS, then snore indeed. :O
But you don't have the game in your hands, so you can't really know whether that scenario is actually true or not.

Someone said this somewhere else (paraphrased):
The "worst" mods are not the ones that took forever to develop, where never finished, and are of unpleasant quality. The mods made with the least skill are those that have pages of concept art and design docs, yet never as so far get close to a working prototype.

As long as the NTS team doesn't charge you 20 bucks for these 18 models and nothing else, a long wait time is a small price, unless you are going to die of cancer within a year.

 

[Gusdor]

...with gameplay a carbon copy of CSS, then snore indeed.

Most multiplayer games are shifting that way nowadays. 2 teams, 'realism', round based structure, terrorists....bombs. Personally I want to see moore games like Richochet being made.

I'd love to see you quote where I said it sucks.

No one had to wait 'all those years' for the hidden. it was 'counts', 6-8 months for something to play and a further few months for some 'polish'.

Lets see what the professionals say.

I think the real mistakes are happening on the individual MOD teams themselves. They are becoming far too hesitant and conservative in their approach to how they design, develop, and release their games

Sometimes it feels like the MOD community is becoming more and more like the "professional" game community, where products are being approached as something that should take a long time, ship once, and then everyone moves on to the next big project. MOD teams that are approaching building games from this perspective are throwing all of the advantages they have out the window, and are just competing with every other game developer in the world.

/sigh

And when we finally get to play NTS, will it be as expansive as Eternal Silence or as feature packed as Dystopia? Time will tell.

Postscript: I should add that I only have fun with the Hidden for an hour at a time. It doesn't take long for me to realise I suck

 

[DjBourgeoisie]

NTS according to our testers at the current alpha level is already more developed than any available hl2 mod out for download (their words not mine). Our news post I thought made it clear this was a staggered update, revealing more pieces of the bigger puzzle every other week or so. Im guessing many choose to just look at pictures instead of actually reading the news though.

 

[Gusdor]

NTS according to our testers at the current alpha level is already more developed than any available hl2 mod out for download (their words not mine).

If its at that stage of development can I ask why you havn't released yet?
Just out of curiosity, how many released mods do they:
a) play regularly
b) enjoy
And;
Are any of them qualified to make that judgement?
Were they selected for their forum post count?

 

[Ging]

I'll just hasten to point out that Gus's comments in no way represent the thoughts or opinions of the rest of our team - one day he'll learn to stay quiet or put forward his "constructive criticism" in a less grating way.

My apologies for his outburst - I wish I could say it won't happen again!

 

[DjBourgeoisie]

If its at that stage of development can I ask why you havn't released yet?
Just out of curiosity, how many released mods do they:
a) play regularly
b) enjoy
And;
Are any of them qualified to make that judgement?
Were they selected for their forum post count?

Well for one, look at all the betas out there, they barely have a following for various reasons. Second, I am the only core member of the team who does not have a shipped retail title under their belt, so we know what we are doing. As far as I know, many of them have tried just about every mod thats a beta out there as it was a topic of discussion in our irc just the other day. As for them being qualified to judge, I dont know, they play games so what more qualifications do you need.

 

[simon]

NTS according to our testers at the current alpha level is already more developed than any available hl2 mod out for download (their words not mine).

Yea, we have the same thing with Off Limits, just a few key elements left and we'll try to release it asap. It's like it was said above, MOD teams are usually small teams with an even smaller dedicated and active amount of people working on it, and this after hours free of charge. Any mod that releases is a winner in my book, and I have respect for every mod that gets released and the people that made it happen. Making a mod yourself gives you a much clearer view on the amount of work involved in getting from an idea to a released and played mod. Add to this the poor SDK support and tools included by Valve and you are sure to spend 3+ years on a total conversion mod. Making a mod is usually people wanting to create their vision, and learning what is needed to do so, a jump platform into the industry if you will. So if a mod were to fail that you worked on, it would make you feel bad sure, but the experience and knowledge gained from it plus the portfolio build out of this will only help you in the end to get a steady job in gaming.

So, no negative comments on anyone making a mod from me

 

[FriedchikenCamo]

I'll just hasten to point out that Gus's comments in no way represent the thoughts or opinions of the rest of our team - one day he'll learn to stay quiet or put forward his "constructive criticism" in a less grating way.

My apologies for his outburst - I wish I could say it won't happen again!

I think that was already apparent, as Gus has a right to an opinion and any developer, gamer, or non-gamer (though Jack Thompson, you don't count). I am just confused as to knowing Gus's credentials as a mod developer, why he isn't as understanding of the time and effort needed to create something on one's free time (Gus DOES have a regular job, right???).

"Personally I want to see more games like Richochet being made."
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has them, and you can't deny that they will stink to some people/ :dork:

Personally, I'm interested in a modification that's based on a similar setting as Ghost in the Shell. I have yet to see a really good game on the subject matter. Now not everyone shares this desire of mine, and would like something that is not a "realistic combat experience". And some people want something that is more of a simulation than Counter-Strike, say the Insurgency crowd.

"No one had to wait 'all those years' for the hidden. it was 'counts', 6-8 months for something to play and a further few months for some 'polish'."
And that's a very admirable milestone, just some concepts take more time to execute than others, along with the how different teams have different sizes and amount of free time available.

"I only have fun with the Hidden for an hour at a time. It doesn't take long for me to realise I suck"
That's how I enjoy playing Hidden as well.
My comment about how people play mods for one hour and criticize them wasn't so much a comment on Hidden, but more of a general case of any game and any mod where lots of time was put into development, only to have a minority of very vocal players say that development was wasted, despite popular appreciation. Happened with Half-life 2, happened with Dystopia mod, regardless of how much quality they had.

"Are any of them qualified to make that judgement?"
An important rule of game design is not to trust your testers too much.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/72/14
That said, as people, they are also able to form opinions, though you could say being in a closed test can taint someone's objectivity. But how can you accuse the testers of not playing enough mods to form a qualitative guess, as practically all the indevelopment mods are released for free? Of course they tried them out, ranging from Gutter Runners, PVKII, Dystopia, that colonial revolution mod, to SMOD Tactical, Hidden, etc, etc. Barring the closed tests, such as Insurgency, the NTS testers obviously have HL2, and probably play other mods out of curiousity.

"Were they selected for their forum post count?"
Good source of bias there, though I would also guess that time spent on the IRC channel is also counts as well. FYI, if you check the NTS forums, this "FriedchikenCamo" guy has the (2nd) biggest post count, so maybe he is f---ing crazy (and f---ing bored too!). But clearly he also likes to play other mods while waiting for NTS as well (like Hidden, hint, hint)... I think. (0_o)

But seriously, if you see the content of my posts, I focus more on off topic stuff, than actually discussing the mod itself. I like the small community of NTS, and for some psychotic reason, find badgering others of my presence more fun than actually waiting per say.

Anyways, if slowly developing mods bug you, simply ignore them until they get released, or if they fail, you never wasted your time in the first place waiting. You don't need to make some race of what free mods are developed.

Note: DJB's probably going to see this post and think I'm off again spamming people to death. The horror- D:

 

[Gusdor]

(Gus DOES have a regular job, right???).

Interesting you should say that...
The majority of HS was done when i was in uni. So yeh, i had time to kill Now i am out of there and finding employment in games is a freeking nightmare. 8 months and have i had even so much as an interview? a phone call? have i bollocks You'll probably understand a little why im so damn bitter about everything hehe. I dare say that thread like this only hinder me /flex Oh how little I care

You would also be surprised at how little modding seems to count for on my job applications. Yeh i made this mod. Seems to be doing pretty well. and they go *careface*

Life story over!
Anyone need an animator to employ

 

[Tatsur0]

Are YOU qualified?

snore

Not only does this comment make you look the fool but who's going to take you seriously now? Learn tasteful constructive criticism if you don't want the mod community to ignore you like we do so many.

the key to my comment was '3 years'. Tired of waiting, you know?

That wasn't your comment that was someone else's. You typed a single word not a comment, which added nothing to the thread.

If its at that stage of development can I ask why you havn't released yet?
Just out of curiosity, how many released mods do they:
a) play regularly
b) enjoy
And;
Are any of them qualified to make that judgement?
Were they selected for their forum post count?

As for releasing early I noticed you brought up Hidden: Source which I thought a great example for why mods shouldn't release early as the quality of the mod while fun for a few days lacked in gameplay, maps, and especially models. So rather than letting that kill my experience I've stopped playing in hopes that later when I check it out the Development team might have something a bit more finished and balanced.

A. Enough
B. Not Enough
C. Yes
D. I have 33 posts since 2005 in NT:S forums, 440 in my own mod's forums since 2004 and I lead the damn thing (Zombie Panic: Source but we are not discussing this mod), and 1 post for HalfLife2.net. So it's quite possible I was in fact selected for my post count That and I've been modding for 12 years.

Rushing mods is stupid and those that have released have lost a large portion of their fanbase. Whatever the 'professionals' say about us modders making mistakes by trying to be "professional" we release our mods for these reasons. To be known (NT:S has deprived themselves from this to focus on the quality of their mod), to have people enjoy their mod (There isn't a single mod currently released that I can stand playing for more than an hour or 2 which has more to do with the fact they they were all released way too early), we believe we have a working version of the image playing in our minds for the last couple years. I agree you shouldn't wait too long as people lose interest but if you screw up and release too early not only will people most likely lose interest but will also ignore media releases, quit your forums, leave your IRC channel. Best to wait till when you think it's right then to have the community pressure you into making a mistake.

We can't get away with fun box maps and half ass work anymore.

Tatsur0

 

[Evo]

I personally perfer a mod to stay in development longer and have it polished as much as possible before release. I am sure NT will turn out great.

Hell look at BM(S) they have been working on that for quite a while now and release little amounts of info here and there

Respect to all mod teams, epsecially those like NT and BM(S) who are willing to hold back before releasing early Betas

 

[Gusdor]

As for releasing early I noticed you brought up Hidden: Source which I thought a great example for why mods shouldn't release early as the quality of the mod while fun for a few days lacked in gameplay, maps, and especially models. So rather than letting that kill my experience I've stopped playing in hopes that later when I check it out the Development team might have something a bit more finished and balanced.

The taster build that HS first released was very encouraging for the developers. A few months into the project and BAM - feedback. Quickfire opinions on what is liked and what isn't. What works and what players hope to see next. hopefully it can be seen that the list of possible features for future releases was slowly wittled down to the ones that people wanted to see. Lets face it, in games, the customer is ALWAYS right. They define fun. Getting their opinion is hugely rewarding.

What you are essentially saying is 'screw the people paid to maek games, we're going to do it our way'? I don't think that is healthy. You'll probably find that the majority of mods avaliable for download are just not good games. Possibly why you can't play them for long (i know thats my reason).

Respect to all mod teams, epsecially those like NT and BM(S) who are willing to hold back before releasing early Betas

You have one of the senior developers of the game your website covers quoted on your forums as saying this is foolish. He gives examples of the successful mods of the past and says why frequent and fast releases are advantagious. Respect for ignoring it! Ok, BM:S get away with it because its a single player job

 

[Tatsur0]

Lets face it, in games, the customer is ALWAYS right. They define fun. Getting their opinion is hugely rewarding.

Actually in this case (game development) the customer is often wrong. Point is you can't make everyone happy and by developing your mod from a very early release to finish off of others ideas and suggestions you're going to end up with a very poorly made cluster****.

What you are essentially saying is 'screw the people paid to maek games, we're going to do it our way'? I don't think that is healthy.

I think you mean "screw the people who play these games" otherwise I'm not exactly sure what you mean. But no that would be you putting words in my mouth. What I'm saying is to develop your mod, your way like intended and when you have a good well rounded game then release and update by opinions you agree with ignoring the rest as like I said you can't make everyone happy so focus on the original group.

You'll probably find that the majority of mods avaliable for download are just not good games. Possibly why you can't play them for long (i know thats my reason).

That's a given. But I'd say 'all' current released mods are lacking considerably and should have waited.

You have one of the senior developers of the game your website covers quoted on your forums as saying this is foolish. He gives examples of the successful mods of the past and says why frequent and fast releases are advantagious. Respect for ignoring it! Ok, BM:S get away with it because its a single player job

One mans opinion based off mods that you could get away with half ass work (Not Source mods). These days you can't, as it takes a lot more work and people aren't as forgiving as before. Release too early and you'll most likely kill your mod. Times are changing and so is the community, best to change with, then fall behind.

Tats...

 

[Gusdor]

We'll see what works won't we.

 

[FriedchikenCamo]

As far as tester feedback goes, the middle ground says that you need to know when to listen to your testers, and when to NOT listen to your testers, just a balance. Since a lot of us understand what is good about tester feedback, here's an article that argues why it is sometimes bad (just take it with some salt, as it's exaggerated and opinionated):
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/72/14

Basically, while communities always know what they don't like, its sometimes hard to pin exactly what they WILL like (until you spend effort to implement the tested feature). In the grand scheme of things, testers are great for short-term feedback, but not so great at nailing the future in-development features. It's kinda hard to explain, so I suggest skimming the article for some of the points. But of course feel free to disagree with some or all of the points made.

Just to clarify why the community is sometimes wrong, know that Soldner (the PC game) was huge on community input, and that design decisions were easily modified for the community requests. In the end, they kinda screwed up the development, focusing too much on the tertiary features fans suggested (like dancing and emoticon animations), while accidently running out of time to fix the little things (that stacked up) wrong with the main gameplay. Extreme example, but it does sorta illustrate when too much conformity with fans is unhealthy for a project.

We'll see what works won't we.

I would say that both approaches to mod development have worked in the past, just that more mods fail than not regardless of what release strategy they use.

So yeah, only time will tell whether Neotokyo Source will have a good launch or not.

Oh, and good luck with finding a job. Being in University for two years is making me worried about finding a career in the future, so I can sorta symphathize with your current situation. D:

I dare say that thread like this only hinder me /flex Oh how little I care

Considering that most of are only ticked off by your relatively neutral "snore" comment, maybe you should just ignore us for a bit and focus on the job search. After some point we will all cool down and forget about this. If you let the little things, like whiney site commentators, get you down, stress builds up. So stay cool.
:afro:


And here's a quick excerpt from the article is just linked:

Welcome to a world of reactionary development. Every time the community screams, the developers shift focus and try to put out that fire. Suddenly, the game is no longer in development, but rather in commercial service, and this is wrong. Testing phases are for testing and there is no way to say with any idea of accuracy that something truly does suck until all the spices are in the pot.
...
When too many people are yelling contradictory opinions, and developers try to accommodate them all, they get a brown canvas; something that is entirely innocuous, but completely pointless. These are also known as unremarkable or - dare I say - bad games.
...
I suggest only that game developers ignore their hardcore fans. By hardcore, I mean anyone who uses videogame-related message boards. Like it or not, the people posting are not a representative sample of your community. There's a reason no one believes that girls play videogames despite constant studies saying the opposite. They have better sense than to dive into the acid culture that exists on most videogame message boards. They'd most likely just get asked if they're "hawt." There goes half the audience from that sample so many game developers listen so intently to.
...
Half-finished products are always going to inspire hate, and no mater how much it stings, making drastic changes in response to community complaints invites disaster.

I would definitely say that the biggest weakness of the article is that "hardcore players" are probably the people most likely to play mods, instead of the vanilla game package.

 

[Gusdor]

Great post FriedchikenCamo. Cheers for the kind words

I wish Blizzard would read that article with respect to wow.

With HS every time someone cried about the concept or the setting we told them 'hey, we think its cool and actually, it works, so sod off and learn to play the game'.

 

[FriedchikenCamo]

_

 

[Ging]

I would say that both approaches to mod development have worked in the past, just that more mods fail than not regardless of what release strategy they use.

There's actually an quite interesting presentation by Robin Walker of Valve that talks about the number of releases all the huge mods (CS, DoD, GMod) went through and it's something like 20 releases in ~6 months on average.

The presentation is here and an explanation of the presentation from Robin can be found here (you need to scroll to nearly the bottom of the page).

I dislike the long development period to get it 'perfect' method because I'm basically an impatient git - stop showing me shiny things and let me play it for myself already!

 

[keats]

As simon posted, we're in the same boat as NT with Off Limits. Our internal quality is more than decent, and the game is getting fun to play. But there's no need for us to get public feedback for us yet, we have plenty of stuff we know we need to do to make the game more fun. We know what is missing to achieve the level of quality, playability and fun we are aiming for; all that is missing is the time to add them all (we only have a few active members, and we all have dayjobs). Even our alphatest feedback is useless for me, as as a coder I know better than the alphatesters where the bugs are and how to trigger them [besides, they typically degenerate in race matches since the testers love the cars too much ] For us developing is a work of love and learning, and is not for the fame nor the fanbasecount (god knows we'd lose that one , even though our quality is up there). We're creating a game in our vision; and we'll release it when it's there, and THEN build on the feedback. In the meantime, several of our team have gotten jobs in the industry, partly thanks to the mod; so in my eyes, it's already a huge success.

Good luck with neotokyo, and you're damn right; don't release out of community pressure. Erik Johnson can say all he will (sure he wants us to release early; it's in *their* benefit that we fill in the gaps between their delays and increase shelflife as soon as possible), but I'm pretty sure the person best fit to tell whether he should release his particular mod or not is the modmaker himself.