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Best Answer Phil, 20 April 2014 - 09:08 PM

I've heard this argument many times, so let me explain my reasoning a bit:

 

Firstly, developing this stuff takes time. We're not talking days or weeks here, but months or years, depending on how much free time I can invest. I've started this project in September 2012, not just yesterday. So if you say we should have been "a little bit more patient", what you mean is more like "a few years more patient". What factors strongly into this is motivation. I am much more motivated to work on a server that is used a lot than one that is just a project on my hard disk. Motivation also decreases over time. In fact, it's quite possible that if I had held it back until it's perfect, I would have simply given up at some point and moved onto another project. Ergo, no server at all. This leads to two things: a public server makes me more motivated, so work on it more often. Doing more work means it takes less time, which in turn means my motivation and focus decrease less.

Another issue is that the BFME community itself is shrinking a bit every day. If I had waited another 3 years until I released, maybe the community would have been mostly dead already. I'd rather release an imperfect product to a wide audience than a perfect product to a handful of players. That means the whole work would have been for nothing.

 

The other big point is testing. You'll notice that this server is officially still in "public beta". We know it's not perfect and we don't consider it done. We have so many ideas what can be done with this project and we haven't even reached feature parity with the EA server. I plan to continue this project for many years if circumstances allow it. However, it is impossible to write a perfect program on the first try, so there will be bugs. Some of them are really hard to discover if you don't have real-world usage. Many of the things I've fixed recently I didn't even know were a problem until people playing on the server reported it. So by releasing it earlier, it gets improved a lot sooner and faster than if it was kept secret.

 

Another nice side effect is that by releasing early, we have found a couple very skilled and motivated helpers (ICT, Echo, etc.) that shoulder part of the burden and contribute to an even faster and better product. If you keep stuff secret, you're isolating yourself from outside help.

 

You'll have to trust me when I say I've thought long and hard about when to make this project public. And I'm 100% convinced that I've made the right decision. Of course you can disagree, but be aware that you're basing your conclusion on incomplete information.

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#1 SexyGollum

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Posted 16 April 2014 - 12:29 AM

Hey guys

 

First, i want to say thank you to the revora team that is doing a great work!

 

But well, i think you guys don't take the right decision, i think you should wait for ladder before to open those servors. Use ladder to make a great annoucement

Because most of players will only join if there is a ladder! Otherwise no point to leave gameranger!

If you open your servors now, you take a risk to have a bad activity, if players from gameranger see a bad activity they will completly ignore your servor, and will be hard to bring them again! Don't underestimate the first impression.

 

I am a Rotwk player, but still i will play some on bfme 2 to try this servor! But i really hope you will do a servor for Rotwk guys! And please use 1.08 and 2.02 version!



#2 Echo

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Posted 16 April 2014 - 06:49 PM

Hi,

 

I see this from a different point of view than you do. No one, really no one did expect a new online server. T3A was just excited (as all the other players) to open up the beta servers for everyone as the community was pretty much in favor of a server (even if it meant without QM for a start). "No point to leave Gameranger!" doesn't apply for me at all. I think I did not touch BFME 1 Gameranger since the opening of the servers. MANY players initially returned to BFME in the early stages of the servers, but left again because no one from Gameranger supported the server project. We had the chance to increase the community, but players decided to remain on Gameranger (which does NOT improve BFME Online) instead of T3A (who is working hard every day to improve the servers) and prevented community growth.

 

Edit: Any Patch/Mod can be played on the servers, and there's no intention of changing that. No one is going to be forced to play a version he/she doesn't want to play.


Edited by Echo, 16 April 2014 - 06:51 PM.

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#3 Mathijs

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Posted 16 April 2014 - 06:57 PM

What Echo says is true.

 

We might have overestimated people's willingness to make a minimal effort to try the server, but that doesn't mean keeping them closed until a 'ladder' (this word is becoming more and more abstract, I feel) was implemented is a good idea.

 

The server has been improved greatly since its release and we have managed to solve every issue people have run into. Stats, ladders, QM, these things will come. In the meantime, the development team has learned valuable lessons and made a number of people very happy with the server. 


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#4 Pasidon

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Posted 17 April 2014 - 06:04 AM

Hey guys

Hey.  

But well, i think you guys don't take the right decision, i think you should wait for ladder before to open those servors. Use ladder to make a great annoucement

 

Eh?  Yea.. not too sure about that one.  Not something developers typically do, or private server owners.  


#5 SexyGollum

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Posted 20 April 2014 - 03:54 PM

 MANY players initially returned to BFME in the early stages of the servers, but left again because no one from Gameranger supported the server project. We had the chance to increase the community, but players decided to remain on Gameranger (which does NOT improve BFME Online) instead of T3A (who is working hard every day to improve the servers) and prevented community growth.

 

 

This is exactly what i mean! only Some tried to play on this new servor,, but they saw bad activity and left and came back on gameranger! Now those are claiming this servor is a fail ( i know it because i hear it everydays when i talk about it to others players)

The main reason is, without ladder you bring nothing new, gameranger is the same in many aspect, there is ofc still some difference but not enough to convice them.

If you open your servor with a ladder immediatly, more will try it the first days, and this is very important to have a succesfull avtivity the first days, otherwise will be even harder/impossible to bring them back

Try it with Rotwk, i am sure you will notive a big difference!



#6 Echo

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Posted 20 April 2014 - 06:07 PM

 

This is exactly what i mean! only Some tried to play on this new servor,, but they saw bad activity and left and came back on gameranger! Now those are claiming this servor is a fail ( i know it because i hear it everydays when i talk about it to others players)

The main reason is, without ladder you bring nothing new, gameranger is the same in many aspect, there is ofc still some difference but not enough to convice them.

If you open your servor with a ladder immediatly, more will try it the first days, and this is very important to have a succesfull avtivity the first days, otherwise will be even harder/impossible to bring them back

Try it with Rotwk, i am sure you will notive a big difference!

 

 

Surely you would get more activity with a ladder than without a ladder. But did you ever think about how long it takes to develop something like that, and that the people working on the server are spending their free time to develop it further? As I said, I am perfectly satisfied with what we have right now, and I support this continuously developing project. People working on this server are dedicated to the community, they work on the server to improve it every single day. What does Gameranger do for the community? Right. Revora/T3A promised ladders, they're working hard to realize that as fast as they can. But as I said, the developers develop in their freetime, so it is just natural that the server does not have highest priority in their lives. They knew QM would still take a bit so they released the server to the community (on the communities demand... don't forget this part) with the promise that the server will function like EA's server eventually.

 

And no, I'm not talking about the players who went back to Gameranger. I was talking about old players from ~2009/2010 who heard of the servers and wanted to come back to play BFME on the server. Yet the majority of the community decided to stick with Gameranger, so the old players quit the game again. Similar with me. When the server was back, I was active and played as many games on the server as possible. Players however decided to keep playing on Ranger, therefore I have stopped playing BFME (unless there are a few people on the server to play with). It's a shame. People cried when EA closed the servers back in 2010, now they cry because the new server isn't in perfect shape yet (QM missing, blablabla, mimimi). T3A promised those features will come, so I support them. Considering the developers have invested so much free time in this project, for no money and only to give the BFME community the chance to play online again, they've done excellent work with this up until now.


Edited by Echo, 20 April 2014 - 06:10 PM.

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#7 SexyGollum

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Posted 20 April 2014 - 08:03 PM

I know people did a great work, and took for sure lot of time, and that's also the reason why im saying that!

I am just saying, when you take in consideration how many hours they spent to make this server, they should have been little more patient to make this ladder before to officially open the server, not saying they had to be faster ofc not, just to take more times to have a perfect server with important argument to interest others from gameranger!



#8 Phil

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Posted 20 April 2014 - 09:08 PM   Best Answer

I've heard this argument many times, so let me explain my reasoning a bit:

 

Firstly, developing this stuff takes time. We're not talking days or weeks here, but months or years, depending on how much free time I can invest. I've started this project in September 2012, not just yesterday. So if you say we should have been "a little bit more patient", what you mean is more like "a few years more patient". What factors strongly into this is motivation. I am much more motivated to work on a server that is used a lot than one that is just a project on my hard disk. Motivation also decreases over time. In fact, it's quite possible that if I had held it back until it's perfect, I would have simply given up at some point and moved onto another project. Ergo, no server at all. This leads to two things: a public server makes me more motivated, so work on it more often. Doing more work means it takes less time, which in turn means my motivation and focus decrease less.

Another issue is that the BFME community itself is shrinking a bit every day. If I had waited another 3 years until I released, maybe the community would have been mostly dead already. I'd rather release an imperfect product to a wide audience than a perfect product to a handful of players. That means the whole work would have been for nothing.

 

The other big point is testing. You'll notice that this server is officially still in "public beta". We know it's not perfect and we don't consider it done. We have so many ideas what can be done with this project and we haven't even reached feature parity with the EA server. I plan to continue this project for many years if circumstances allow it. However, it is impossible to write a perfect program on the first try, so there will be bugs. Some of them are really hard to discover if you don't have real-world usage. Many of the things I've fixed recently I didn't even know were a problem until people playing on the server reported it. So by releasing it earlier, it gets improved a lot sooner and faster than if it was kept secret.

 

Another nice side effect is that by releasing early, we have found a couple very skilled and motivated helpers (ICT, Echo, etc.) that shoulder part of the burden and contribute to an even faster and better product. If you keep stuff secret, you're isolating yourself from outside help.

 

You'll have to trust me when I say I've thought long and hard about when to make this project public. And I'm 100% convinced that I've made the right decision. Of course you can disagree, but be aware that you're basing your conclusion on incomplete information.


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#9 SexyGollum

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Posted 20 April 2014 - 09:45 PM

Omg i didn't know took so much time, now i understand your point, thank you Phil

Keep this great work! I will try to spam games on your server when i'll have some freetime!



#10 Antahrg

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Posted 27 April 2014 - 12:47 AM

I used to be totally agree with SexyGollum point of view, but I have to admit that your message convinced me Phil :)

I understand better why you did it :)

 

However, I am sorry to ask and I know that you can't give me a day or whatever, but when you say : 

So if you say we should have been "a little bit more patient", what you mean is more like "a few years more patient".
,

 

Should we understand that even if you opened servers earlier (to find motivation, helpers etc, i got it), we shouldn't expect the ladder to come in a near future, but most probably in several years ?

 

Thanks for your work anyway, I like to play on these servers. Remind me good old time, and I'm pretty sure you're working hard to improve it each day -what gameranger don't do-



#11 Mathijs

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Posted 27 April 2014 - 12:50 AM

It shouldn't take that long, no :p It might have, if we hadn't gotten the valuable feedback, testing, and *motivation* we got from opening the servers as soon as they were stable enough for people to play games on.


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#12 Radspakr Wolfbane

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Posted 27 April 2014 - 03:01 AM

I've heard that some leeway has already been made on stats.

With the Gamespy servers getting shut down we may see an increase in interest in the T3A server as it could be adapted for the CNC.


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