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Can you make new content as fast as Zen Companions?
fusedmass
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild Users Posts: 252 Bounty Hunter
Forgive my ignorance, on this matter. I'm not a highly computer programmer. Yet since the launch of this game, we've had three separate maps for PVP, with exception of newest one only able to use at level 60. Yet, I've lost count how many Zen Companions they'd made.
Their was a companion included in the fury pack, one in hero of the north, I believe one in guardian pack, also the stone warrior, the ghost, with arrival of newest companion today. This off the top of my head. I'm certain I've left out a bunch.
I'm just curious, if you made a new PVP map, everyone could enjoy it for as long as the game is active. If you create a Zen store companion, only a limited few could enjoy it, lets be honest as soon as two months passes they will forget about it.
Is it harder to make a new PVP map, then a zen store companion. Is it more time consuming.. I'm sincerely asking, just looking at the rate their pumping out zen store companions, possibly could we get a new PVP map?
Thanks
FusedMass
Their was a companion included in the fury pack, one in hero of the north, I believe one in guardian pack, also the stone warrior, the ghost, with arrival of newest companion today. This off the top of my head. I'm certain I've left out a bunch.
I'm just curious, if you made a new PVP map, everyone could enjoy it for as long as the game is active. If you create a Zen store companion, only a limited few could enjoy it, lets be honest as soon as two months passes they will forget about it.
Is it harder to make a new PVP map, then a zen store companion. Is it more time consuming.. I'm sincerely asking, just looking at the rate their pumping out zen store companions, possibly could we get a new PVP map?
Thanks
FusedMass
<Ineractive Gaming>http://www.youtube.com/user/Josh19344
Post edited by fusedmass on
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That makes me sad =(
We are definitely dominating, and we are always about to win.
It's like asking whether you can build a house as fast as a flatpack piece of furniture.
Few of the Zen Companions are "new" content but are simply altered pieces of existing content.
For instance the leprechauns already existed in Sharandar.
I bet they probably make companios in sets of 5 or 10 and release them 1 a week. if you look at it very few of the comanions have unique animations or abilities most of them probably are just applied to "dog" "hawk" "cleric" "defender" that's why 3/4 new pets are strikers cause they just apply to dog.
Not really. A new pet is just a new graphical skin set and 4 abilities. And a lot of the pets seem to have been through the recycle bin: the free wolf from the startup pack, the orc wolf, the bone dog, and a couple others are the exact same thing nearly, looks like a "grab the existing and modify" job.
A new area means landscape that is free from screwups (its easy to mess up and have holes that people fall through or tears in the textures or other frustrations), new monsters (while these are also recycle bin specials often, they still have some work behind them and there are at least 8 types in every zone), new quests (and npc camp and store and .... ), new items (unique rewards at the very least), ....
so to answer, in short, a new pet is much easier than an entire new zone. And making new zones too fast is thankless: there is always some doofus that will beat the new area in 1 day's time, then demand more content because they have done everything, repeat until the programmers keel over dead from exhaustion. MMO devs have learned that feeding the machine too fast is a path to self destruction, and most give major content only a few times a year now due to the "beat it in one day demand more" problems of trying to appease these types of players.
If you want more content, try making some! We have a foundry, but people don't seem to use it.... see for yourself what it takes to make a small area into a nice module... it can take weeks of work for a good one...
No making another pvp map would not require any programming on their part. In fact it's probably like most games where they have foundry like tool where they can make maps fairly simple... This is what makes me mad about it.
It's not like another class/spells.
Depends on what you call programming. Most graphics are done in a 3d "cad" type program and exported as a completed file, which the software simply loads. It takes up time of a graphical artist, not a code monkey. Likewise sounds are created in an audio editor, not code. However spells may just be a table in an interface so long as they only use existing effects --- this graphical effect, this name, that much damage, and whatever buff/debuff, .... its just a lookup table probably. The work there is to fit it into the game balance and design, add new graphics for it, etc.
A new pvp map should be more or less trivial, however those must also be designed so that terrain features, fight points, choke points, routes, and so on are fair and provide a good experience. Its not just throwing a few polygons down .... still, of all the things that could be done, this one should be fairly easy in relative terms. I say a new pet is cheaper still, though -- esp the leprachan for example as the animation/graphics were added already, so making it a pet is reuse of that + reuse of core code, just a little tweaking for unique ability...
At some point the core engine (once they finally debug it) should be stable and remain mostly unchanged --- it becomes a file loading engine and new content is simple creation of new files and a couple of hooks to load these files on demand (here, just when traveling to a new area). Kinda like how the foundry works.... changes to the engine become more rare as it supports more and more things (example, spell effects, add an new "stun" spell, well the stun effect exists, no change needed ... add a new spell that does something unlike all others, that needs a code change --- the new AP drain spell for mobs would probably have needed new code, while the stun attack by the redcaps would not...).
Its a f2p game they dont have the funds to fix everything. You get what you paid for. Well unless you actaully gave them money then sorry your out of luck. LOL Ask for a refund.
Let say you are at McDonalds. The place is very busy and there are many people waiting behind you. When you place your order the cashier tells you there will be a wait for the fries because none are cooked yet. So you tell her, "How about halting all work on other things and focus on getting those fries made."
So everyone, all the cashiers, the managers, the guys on the grill and the guy cleaning the bathroom rush to the fryer to make fries. After 3 minutes of stepping over each other to get the fries made they realize that there are no burgers made because the burger guys were helping with making fries. Using your logic they all rush back to make burger and after a few minutes of getting in each other's way they get a good amount of burgers out. During all this time the customers behind you and in the driver-tru have been waiting and there are so angry at having to wait they are about to riot! Again the staff all drop what they are doing to take all the orders they can but there are only six registers so the remainder of the crew go out and take orders with pen and paper...
Does this sound very efficient to you?
Chances are if they did halt all zen based purchases, it would not get any maps out any faster. but that one guy who does companions every week would get some time off. And it is a really good thing they DONT just shun their business teams and interal polocies on the whims of the forums, cause ive seen just as many people say there should be no pvp in the game at all as people wanting more pvp maps.
and that would be tragic. NW's unique action play makes even unbalanced pvp more fair because even if you are totally over-geard and have all the zen based items playing a OP race on a OP class.... you can still really stink. trust me I know my hubby set me up way better than he set himself up and can out dps me me on any class. its embarrassing to have a TR out dpsed by a cleric... Luckily he helped me getting my dps up.
Also ill note me and hubby add a lot of stuff to wiki, its INSANE on how often they don't even change descriptions for new items the NEW summer outfit has same desc as the courtesan garb, the Hero of the north box claimed to drop noble finery. if your rush them your gonna find yourself having to pvp on that bugged foundry map that randomly spans trees everywhere and drops you through the geometry when you die,
That's cool. Neither am I.
Okay. I'm with you so far.
I'm pretty sure you have as well.
Sure. Those that participate in PvP would like new PvP content. But, for a F2P game, the zen store is kind of how we pay our bills and continue to develop new content for everyone.
This is kind of like asking is it harder to build a car than write a poem. Is it more time consuming to design a bridge or train a dog? In general, yes. It takes a lot longer to create a new zone than a new companion, but....
The people who make companions are almost entirely not the people who make new zones. That said, the people who make new PvP zones are almost entirely the same people who make things like the summer event map, The various Sharandar/FoF maps, etc.
Some companions are quicker and 'easier' than others. Humanoids, for instance, is generally a new set of powers, 4 new costumes, a handful of new animations, some glittery FX, some sounds and bingo boingo...we've got a companion. But the "easy" ones still represent weeks worth of work from multiple people/departments. Likewise with variations on critters. Worg/Wolf/Dog, Boar/Pig, etc. Completely new critters (e.g., the Lillend) that have very different skeletons require extra time for rigging, character art, whole suite of animations including movement, hit reactions, deaths, etc...so we like to alternate between humanoid companions and new non-humanoid mounts/companions
Again, none of this cuts into zones. It's whole different pods (small sub-teams) who are working on zone content. Whole different pod work on critters for zones. Whole different pod work on player classes. Whole different department works on everything software-related, and that's even broken down into systems, combat, graphics/VFX, animation/audio, network, backend, etc.
That make sense?
You are welcome!
Ruffiana
Cryptic Animation Rig for the win!
Then UGC could submit new creatures for Cryptic to approve/include.
Oh, wait... nevermind. Looks dead. 2008?
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