I was close to losing all hope after they destroyed my game in 12.0
I had spent hundreds of $$$ making my team work around block proficiency and the great champs. Hundreds of $$$ more on the masteries they then destroyed.
I kept with this game against all my better judgement...
Now I have spent hundreds of $$$ SINCE 12.0 to make my roster as strong as possible for WAR. Ranking 4 stars to 5/50 by buying all deals, chasing war defense champs in arena. It's all happening again. Twice in 2.5 years I have the feeling that I've WASTED all my time and $$$ on this game. It's discouraging. It's disheartening.
I don't know what to do now. I used to feel that I had "invested" too much into this game to ever quit. I don't know that I still feel this way. At the very least, I will NOT be spending anymore to change my game to a new style, because I now know that in 6 months, they will change everything AGAIN and I'll have wasted another few hundred $$$.
@madmarks to be fair, i noticed t2 alpha is now being sold in glory store for 1000 glory per 3600 shards or something, its a step in the right direction considering you dont need to spend real money to obtain glory. Im not sure how longs its been there, im assuming it was recently added because i never noticed it
I don't think you play much or see what is really going on...you do understand that nothing is working good anymore? Masteries and champions are constatly nerfed,silently of course. When we want answers we always get "we are working on it". For bugs and lags that are here for months.but they are really fast when there is bug that does a bit good for us.an hour later there is emergency maintenance. We want simple answers,being able to play normal and we want that they start to listen to us. Is that too much to ask???
No, those things are certainly not too much to ask for. But what silent nerfs are you referring to? For problems with champions that are a bug, those aren't intentional. It's sad that you might think that, and we realize that some of these bugs may take us much longer to resolve than players would like - but some of them are very complex and pervasive bugs. This never means they're intentional or something we don't want to fix.
How about a simple explanation of how something so pervasive, so severe and so obvious as the power drain bug makes it to release. You say it can take longer than players like to fix a bug; how about you don't release an update that's going to cause such obvious, impactful problems? The simplest way to deal with a problem is not to create it. I played for less than 1 day after the update and saw the error. Are you trying to tell the players no one at a Kabam came across this error until after the release? The only explanations are 1) Kabam knew they were introducing a bug, didn't care and proceeded to realease the update anyway or 2) Kabam testers/quality assurance are unbelievably incompetent. Which one of these are supposed to make make the players feel better?
It’s not that new content is diff, change is good..but when changes are made w/o notice, or doesn’t run, or we are lied to saying there are beta testers( which is still unproven and a myth)..it’s the fact that after 12.0 they screwed up and told ppl what they wanted to hear, but have not followed through...they pretended to listen while ppl stopped spending and their rating was low but now they just erase any post they don’t wanna answer or puts their shady tactics to question..it’s all very sad what this game has become
Even when a developer has the full rights to an engine they created for one game, they essentially always start from scratch when making a new game. The thought of carrying the same engine forward to a new game is silly even when we are talking about the developers most familiar with it. For a new team to want to reuse someone else's engine for a new project is something that would make them fall over laughing uncontrollably.
Have you played Transformers? It's the same damn game. So I guess they must still be laughing. You and I have agreed and disagreed on many topics in this forums and I respect your thoughts. This one I think is off based, as you cannot point to one addition or update since the sale to Netmarble that hasn't been plagued by bugs, or generally liked by players. It has been nothing but a downhill ride, with poor customer support, lack of communication, empty promises and general disdain for players.
Players are still waiting for the information they said they were collecting on the champ changes, these threads go unacknowledged. Bugs and broken masteries get the same canned response "We are looking into them". Meanwhile anything that has benefited (even if it was an exploit) can be fixed in days not months.
And to think that these developers and their livelihoods as you say are at risk is laughable, they will be moved to the next game as soon as this dies. Just like they did when they moved some of the original MCOC team to Transformers. The only time anything got changed in this game is when the players rallied on social media and voiced their opinions outside of this forum. I'm sure you'll have counter points, and I be highly disappointed if you didn't but just can't see how you don't see these things.
1. I've played Transformers, for like ten seconds. It is a similar game in some respects. It is not running on the same game engine. There are similarities, but also significant differences. From the moment you start playing and notice the combat isn't a locked perspective side-scroller, that should be obvious. However, for a stronger reference there are articles about Forged to Fight that state that it is the first game to use a newer proprietary game engine Kabam built called "Fuse and Sparx." Here's an article that references this: https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/01/transformers-forged-to-fight-coming-to-ios-and-android-in-spring-2017/
2. Actually, I can point to many game changes that have been seen as generally favorable. One change that has been considered generally favorable was the restructuring of the arena. Ditto the more recent streamlining of the arena interface. Season 4 AQ changes have been generally positive, particularly the glory store and most of the changes to the availability of T4 catalysts. That doesn't excuse the bad things they did, but you did specifically challenge me to point to them. It is also not relevant I think to the part of my post you quoted.
3. Developers don't just have jobs waiting for them when a game folds. What "next game" do you think these devs are going to be moved to if MCOC dies, and why do you think that game isn't hiring people to staff those positions if they need them now. I've seen dev teams dissolve when companies fold or games die: they don't just automatically get shifted to other jobs, because that's not how jobs work. Any game that could currently use them is hiring someone to fill that position now. Dev houses are notorious for not just keeping staff around just to have them around. Some people find positions when the music stops, many others don't have seats and have to find work elsewhere. And the game devs I've known that have taken other jobs? Some move across the state, some end up moving across the country for that next job.
Alright let's go a different direction, if we all agree that kabam is a money hungry company determined to squeeze every last dollar from us, they don't care how we feel, don't want to improve the game, refuse to listen to feedback, and they have a mission to screw all of us...then what? Its not even logical. We employ these people. They want us to enjoy this game and they want to cash their paychecks and go home to their families.
The point of this post was to lift morale, keep up the feedback, whether it be positive or negative but let's start a rational approach that when we fire kabam we put people out of work, and they have no motivation to screw us, not help us, not listen to us, not implement our demands, or not improve the game.
Trust me, I'm no noob, I've spent too much, invested too much time, I'm not overly optimistic things will be fixed frankly. But I do know, we have been through these situations before, we continue to play this game, and based on past experience, this game is fluid and no update is final.
Take a deep breath, that's the point I started with.
I took a break early this year, came back to find they killed Dr. Strange and replaced him with a cheap knockoff, an impostor. I mean we have Hyperion and Mordo with 2 sets of power gain and Dr. Strange has only one, and it was nerfed.
He could have been restricted, or locked out of new content, instead they took away his awesome power.
There are too many changes coming up that are destroying the game, instead of Bases, they give us 6*, instead of updating the alliance events, they release a heavily flawed AW with changes no one was asking for.
I took a break early this year, came back to find they killed Dr. Strange and replaced him with a cheap knockoff, an impostor. I mean we have Hyperion and Mordo with 2 sets of power gain and Dr. Strange has only one, and it was nerfed.
He could have been restricted, or locked out of new content, instead they took away his awesome power.
There are too many changes coming up that are destroying the game, instead of Bases, they give us 6*, instead of updating the alliance events, they release a heavily flawed AW with changes no one was asking for.
Read my post directly above yours, tell me why they would want to destroy their own game intentionally
There were times they listened to the people, and it didn't take a boycott to get them to listen. There are some stuff they wanted to do in the game and were ready to roll it out in an update a day or two later. What happened, people came on here and voiced their displeasure, so they didn't go through with it.
This was last year, fast forward to now. What was the last major change? The AW, what did people say about the proposed changes? There is a big, and hard to miss problem with the scoring change. What did Kabam do? Roll it out anyways.
What did Kabam do months before 12.0? Sell class specific rank up packages (at least if I remember correctly). What happened soon after? They nerfed Dr. Strange. Note: Saw someone mention the rank up packages, I kinda vaguely remember that. This last paragraph may not be accurate, if someone can verify what I say is true or not, I would appreciate it.
I don't think you play much or see what is really going on...you do understand that nothing is working good anymore? Masteries and champions are constatly nerfed,silently of course. When we want answers we always get "we are working on it". For bugs and lags that are here for months.but they are really fast when there is bug that does a bit good for us.an hour later there is emergency maintenance. We want simple answers,being able to play normal and we want that they start to listen to us. Is that too much to ask???
Sigh. There aren't silent nerfs. I'm as critical of Kabam as anyone but the silent nerf thing just isn't true. Sometimes there are bugs that functionally nerf champs but that's not the same thing. I'm not happy with AW. I'm not happy with the failure to make good on the promise that Strange, BW etc., would remain top champs, and I don't think they are going to keep that promise. But there will always be bugs and emergency maintenance. At the end of the day the game runs pretty well.
There were times they listened to the people, and it didn't take a boycott to get them to listen. There are some stuff they wanted to do in the game and were ready to roll it out in an update a day or two later. What happened, people came on here and voiced their displeasure, so they didn't go through with it.
This was last year, fast forward to now. What was the last major change? The AW, what did people say about the proposed changes? There is a big, and hard to miss problem with the scoring change. What did Kabam do? Roll it out anyways.
What did Kabam do months before 12.0? Sell class specific rank up packages (at least if I remember correctly). What happened soon after? They nerfed Dr. Strange. Note: Saw someone mention the rank up packages, I kinda vaguely remember that. This last paragraph may not be accurate, if someone can verify what I say is true or not, I would appreciate it.
The Packages were sold some time before the changes were announced. I believe they're preset for the most part. With the exception of a few that may be added by strong request, they set a certain amount of Offers and spread them out over the year. That's my assumption. People felt that it was somehow connected. Those changes did not come without forethought.
As for the feedback, it was the result of considering the overall reactions and the drastic nature of the changes. Not really because of any Boycott specifically. People wanted to be heard. Then they heard us. Then the Boycott persisted and demanded a total revert, and essentially negated its own purpose because that was not compromise.
As far as the scoring flaws, it was muffled by the reactions of the changes. Things are much more apparent once they go live. They've made some adjustments based on how people chose to use that system. They are also monitoring it closely. It is almost impossible to foresee every problem, and sometimes it has to be put in place to restock what needs to be tweaked.
How could someone not see the math problem that they created?
They could've had beta testers for the new AW like they did with the first one. It took about a month for them to release the last AW to everyone, after about 2 or 3 rounds of testing. Even then it was still tweaked, I think the last thing was the prizes you get.
Kabam says they are working very hard to correct AW and they need more time
3) People think Kabam is a money hungry (insert any number of insults) business
They do probably need to pay their employees and show a profit.
4) People (and I'm absolutely included) feel that the moderator's over-censor the forums
Adora has expressed that Kabam is adding more staff to the team and genuinely is trying to hear our constructive opinions and address them accordingly
5) We are obviously a passionate group.
If this weren't the case then I doubt you would be on the forums.
The take-away?
This game has periods of flux, sometimes new things come out that are really cool and sometimes things get released that just make you really scratch your head... However at the end of the day, I have 29 team mates with 29 different lives and schedules and somehow we have managed to find a way to keep on keeping on.
At first people were in an uproar but with some possible answers coming from the Kabam team on the horizon and AW starting today and AQ around the corner maybe a collective deep breath is in order while we are in a period of flux.
If you want to protest with your wallet, do so.
If you want to take a break from the game, hopefully you will come back to something that is more enjoyable.
But let's put this pot on simmer for a little while until we see the fixes the team can put together.
I for one am moderately optimistic...
They've left bugs in game that hurt us as players/customers in for over a year(even tho they stated it was fixed evasion)
But fixed bugs that helped us in hours, also punished ppl for not paying attaention to what they get from rewards and to stop playing there content(really that's your answer stop playing your game)
I'm no longer optimistic I'm more like how long do I put up with this ****
If I didn't like the type of game and put money in I'd be gone by now
1. I've played Transformers, for like ten seconds. It is a similar game in some respects. It is not running on the same game engine. There are similarities, but also significant differences. From the moment you start playing and notice the combat isn't a locked perspective side-scroller, that should be obvious. However, for a stronger reference there are articles about Forged to Fight that state that it is the first game to use a newer proprietary game engine Kabam built called "Fuse and Sparx." Here's an article that references this: https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/01/transformers-forged-to-fight-coming-to-ios-and-android-in-spring-2017/
Jeff [Howell] has been working in the technology industry for more than two decades. Prior to his role at Kabam, Jeff was the CTO and Co-founder of Exploding Barrel Games which was acquired by Kabam in 2013. While at EBG, he led the group of engineers who built the Fuse and Sparx technologies. https://www.kabam.com/leader-bio-jeff-howell
MCoC uses the Fuse and Sparx engine as well. TFtF just uses a more developed/complex version of it.
Now on the the other instance where Netmarble’s greed led to decisions which caused a new game release by the Vancouver studio [TFtF] to be a bust. Kabam’s Vancouver studio was especially valuable to any acquirer because it had a proprietary “game engine” called “Fuse & Sparx” thought to be capable of churning out a series of re-skinned MCOC hits. http://glomoinvesting.com/netmarble_greed
@GbSarkar & @DNA3000 that was the article I was thinking of but couldn't find it. Further the new additions you pointed out I would agree with as generally liked, while arenas was the only game play addition. The other tweaks you mention only focus on interface (which are great) but not new or exciting content. And not enough IMO to out weigh the increased bugs and block damage for gosh sakes. But we can agree to disagree on these points.
–Today is the first day of the rest of our lives, let's make it count!
1. I've played Transformers, for like ten seconds. It is a similar game in some respects. It is not running on the same game engine. There are similarities, but also significant differences. From the moment you start playing and notice the combat isn't a locked perspective side-scroller, that should be obvious. However, for a stronger reference there are articles about Forged to Fight that state that it is the first game to use a newer proprietary game engine Kabam built called "Fuse and Sparx." Here's an article that references this: https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/01/transformers-forged-to-fight-coming-to-ios-and-android-in-spring-2017/
Jeff [Howell] has been working in the technology industry for more than two decades. Prior to his role at Kabam, Jeff was the CTO and Co-founder of Exploding Barrel Games which was acquired by Kabam in 2013. While at EBG, he led the group of engineers who built the Fuse and Sparx technologies. https://www.kabam.com/leader-bio-jeff-howell
Actually, I read all of those articles. The underlying technology comes from the EBG acquisition, but it seems that Transformers is using a sufficiently more advanced version of it to be considered a new engine. But hold that thought.
MCoC uses the Fuse and Sparx engine as well. TFtF just uses a more developed/complex version of it.
Now on the the other instance where Netmarble’s greed led to decisions which caused a new game release by the Vancouver studio [TFtF] to be a bust. Kabam’s Vancouver studio was especially valuable to any acquirer because it had a proprietary “game engine” called “Fuse & Sparx” thought to be capable of churning out a series of re-skinned MCOC hits. http://glomoinvesting.com/netmarble_greed
That's an opinion piece written by an investment analyst, not a game industry expert. A game industry expert would tell you that no one's "engine" is usually especially valuable because engines grow on trees. You're not going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on an engine when you can license one for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The value of a studio like EBG is in the constellation of toolchains the developers wrote for their own engine. It is the entire package that is worth money if it works: the dev tools that specifically target the custom game engines that allow you to streamline development that can be worth millions of dollars. It is well-known inside the industry, less so outside, that a lot of game development is done in tools like Excel and converted into game data using giant and often unwieldy conversion scripts. Ask anyone that has ripped apart any MMO and they'll tell you that deep in the heart of the game is often a bunch of virtual file repositories with compressed text and binary formatted files that drive the game. The dev tools game developers use to create those are often horrible. I've heard of map editors that are comparable to using Notepad to write web pages.
You also have to be careful about what things are called because names of things are often created for branding purposes. Two different things might be called the same thing to reinforce branding, like the branding of a technology family. Unity 3 and Unity 4 are both the Unity game engine, but the are not the same game engine.
But we're also descending down a quote tree and losing context. This is what @RehctansBew originally said:
Meanwhile they will take the true value which is the proprietary game engine and reskin it once this dies and do the same thing.
In context, I assume what he meant was not the base underlying engine, but the "proprietary" parts that were specific to MCOC: the customizations that turned the generic engine into the MCOC engine. It is that very custom engine that I'm claiming is a dead end and wouldn't be reused. What Kabam is doing with the EBG technology is that one group is evolving the Fuse/Sparx platform, and then games are forking off that technology and customizing it for that specific game. MCOC might have been written with Platform 2.0, but Transformers was written in Platform 3.0. It didn't take 2.0MCOC and then add stuff to it to make it 2.0MCOC+Transformers. That seems unlikely to me.
It seems doubly unlikely to me because when Kabam discussed the problems with timing and Parry back around 12.0, they claimed they needed to migrate the game to a new "engine" which is probably a colloquial statement but it almost certainly means they took at least one major component of the working infrastructure - most likely the engine that runs the actual game on the mobile device - and replaced a major component of it (my guess: the Unity platform). They also said something else interesting: they had to use "vendors" to work on that process. I.e. outside subcontracted developers. Their own people alone didn't do this.
That means the simple model of Kabam having a single platform and making a bunch of different games on it can't be true. It has to be a lot more messy, and almost certainly that is because the "Fuse and Sparx" name refers less to the technology and more to the developer tools that work with those technological pieces. That's how someone can claim that Transformers is the "first" game to use those tools. Because those names no longer refer to the same thing they did when MCOC was written. And the problems we have with MCOC don't exist in the same way on Transformers. They share an evolutionary tree, but they are not build on the same technological components.
I took a break early this year, came back to find they killed Dr. Strange and replaced him with a cheap knockoff, an impostor. I mean we have Hyperion and Mordo with 2 sets of power gain and Dr. Strange has only one, and it was nerfed.
He could have been restricted, or locked out of new content, instead they took away his awesome power.
There are too many changes coming up that are destroying the game, instead of Bases, they give us 6*, instead of updating the alliance events, they release a heavily flawed AW with changes no one was asking for.
Read my post directly above yours, tell me why they would want to destroy their own game intentionally
They aren't intentionally destroying the game. They are pretty much the definition of penny wise buy pound foolish. This new AW is a great example. In the short term they are probably making some money on groups buying AW wins. In the long term, this awful aspect of their game will make more spenders quit.
ON the other hand, had they tweaked AW and made it something people loved (and fixed the rewards system) they would get more people excited about AW and keep the spenders around.
They aren't intentionally destroying the game. They are pretty much the definition of penny wise buy pound foolish. This new AW is a great example. In the short term they are probably making some money on groups buying AW wins. In the long term, this awful aspect of their game will make more spenders quit.
ON the other hand, had they tweaked AW and made it something people loved (and fixed the rewards system) they would get more people excited about AW and keep the spenders around. [/quote]
I must admit, today we won by using diversity. It was a 100% to 100%.... Our players don't find AW fun, and we 'half' joke that the worst the defender the sooner we need to place them on defense. I don't know what to think. Sooo we just keep on keeping on...
I am not irate at the bugs. Every product and game has some. I am irate at the nature of the bugs. So stupid, easily found on the first day after patch release by the thousands, easily identifiable, easily replicable.
Wondering why they came out of beta that way, and why they take upto next month cycle to fix, if at all.
Comments
I had spent hundreds of $$$ making my team work around block proficiency and the great champs. Hundreds of $$$ more on the masteries they then destroyed.
I kept with this game against all my better judgement...
Now I have spent hundreds of $$$ SINCE 12.0 to make my roster as strong as possible for WAR. Ranking 4 stars to 5/50 by buying all deals, chasing war defense champs in arena. It's all happening again. Twice in 2.5 years I have the feeling that I've WASTED all my time and $$$ on this game. It's discouraging. It's disheartening.
I don't know what to do now. I used to feel that I had "invested" too much into this game to ever quit. I don't know that I still feel this way. At the very least, I will NOT be spending anymore to change my game to a new style, because I now know that in 6 months, they will change everything AGAIN and I'll have wasted another few hundred $$$.
Just my experience with MCOC.
How about a simple explanation of how something so pervasive, so severe and so obvious as the power drain bug makes it to release. You say it can take longer than players like to fix a bug; how about you don't release an update that's going to cause such obvious, impactful problems? The simplest way to deal with a problem is not to create it. I played for less than 1 day after the update and saw the error. Are you trying to tell the players no one at a Kabam came across this error until after the release? The only explanations are 1) Kabam knew they were introducing a bug, didn't care and proceeded to realease the update anyway or 2) Kabam testers/quality assurance are unbelievably incompetent. Which one of these are supposed to make make the players feel better?
1. I've played Transformers, for like ten seconds. It is a similar game in some respects. It is not running on the same game engine. There are similarities, but also significant differences. From the moment you start playing and notice the combat isn't a locked perspective side-scroller, that should be obvious. However, for a stronger reference there are articles about Forged to Fight that state that it is the first game to use a newer proprietary game engine Kabam built called "Fuse and Sparx." Here's an article that references this: https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/01/transformers-forged-to-fight-coming-to-ios-and-android-in-spring-2017/
2. Actually, I can point to many game changes that have been seen as generally favorable. One change that has been considered generally favorable was the restructuring of the arena. Ditto the more recent streamlining of the arena interface. Season 4 AQ changes have been generally positive, particularly the glory store and most of the changes to the availability of T4 catalysts. That doesn't excuse the bad things they did, but you did specifically challenge me to point to them. It is also not relevant I think to the part of my post you quoted.
3. Developers don't just have jobs waiting for them when a game folds. What "next game" do you think these devs are going to be moved to if MCOC dies, and why do you think that game isn't hiring people to staff those positions if they need them now. I've seen dev teams dissolve when companies fold or games die: they don't just automatically get shifted to other jobs, because that's not how jobs work. Any game that could currently use them is hiring someone to fill that position now. Dev houses are notorious for not just keeping staff around just to have them around. Some people find positions when the music stops, many others don't have seats and have to find work elsewhere. And the game devs I've known that have taken other jobs? Some move across the state, some end up moving across the country for that next job.
The point of this post was to lift morale, keep up the feedback, whether it be positive or negative but let's start a rational approach that when we fire kabam we put people out of work, and they have no motivation to screw us, not help us, not listen to us, not implement our demands, or not improve the game.
Trust me, I'm no noob, I've spent too much, invested too much time, I'm not overly optimistic things will be fixed frankly. But I do know, we have been through these situations before, we continue to play this game, and based on past experience, this game is fluid and no update is final.
Take a deep breath, that's the point I started with.
He could have been restricted, or locked out of new content, instead they took away his awesome power.
There are too many changes coming up that are destroying the game, instead of Bases, they give us 6*, instead of updating the alliance events, they release a heavily flawed AW with changes no one was asking for.
Read my post directly above yours, tell me why they would want to destroy their own game intentionally
This was last year, fast forward to now. What was the last major change? The AW, what did people say about the proposed changes? There is a big, and hard to miss problem with the scoring change. What did Kabam do? Roll it out anyways.
What did Kabam do months before 12.0? Sell class specific rank up packages (at least if I remember correctly). What happened soon after? They nerfed Dr. Strange. Note: Saw someone mention the rank up packages, I kinda vaguely remember that. This last paragraph may not be accurate, if someone can verify what I say is true or not, I would appreciate it.
Sigh. There aren't silent nerfs. I'm as critical of Kabam as anyone but the silent nerf thing just isn't true. Sometimes there are bugs that functionally nerf champs but that's not the same thing. I'm not happy with AW. I'm not happy with the failure to make good on the promise that Strange, BW etc., would remain top champs, and I don't think they are going to keep that promise. But there will always be bugs and emergency maintenance. At the end of the day the game runs pretty well.
The Packages were sold some time before the changes were announced. I believe they're preset for the most part. With the exception of a few that may be added by strong request, they set a certain amount of Offers and spread them out over the year. That's my assumption. People felt that it was somehow connected. Those changes did not come without forethought.
As for the feedback, it was the result of considering the overall reactions and the drastic nature of the changes. Not really because of any Boycott specifically. People wanted to be heard. Then they heard us. Then the Boycott persisted and demanded a total revert, and essentially negated its own purpose because that was not compromise.
As far as the scoring flaws, it was muffled by the reactions of the changes. Things are much more apparent once they go live. They've made some adjustments based on how people chose to use that system. They are also monitoring it closely. It is almost impossible to foresee every problem, and sometimes it has to be put in place to restock what needs to be tweaked.
How could someone not see the math problem that they created?
They could've had beta testers for the new AW like they did with the first one. It took about a month for them to release the last AW to everyone, after about 2 or 3 rounds of testing. Even then it was still tweaked, I think the last thing was the prizes you get.
They've left bugs in game that hurt us as players/customers in for over a year(even tho they stated it was fixed evasion)
But fixed bugs that helped us in hours, also punished ppl for not paying attaention to what they get from rewards and to stop playing there content(really that's your answer stop playing your game)
I'm no longer optimistic I'm more like how long do I put up with this ****
If I didn't like the type of game and put money in I'd be gone by now
Just boneheaded moves on there part
If you had done a bit more digging, you'd have seen that the Fuse and Sparx engine pre-dates the transformers game (check the date this was posted—November 3, 2015). MCoC uses the Fuse and Sparx engine as well. TFtF just uses a more developed/complex version of it.
–Today is the first day of the rest of our lives, let's make it count!
Actually, I read all of those articles. The underlying technology comes from the EBG acquisition, but it seems that Transformers is using a sufficiently more advanced version of it to be considered a new engine. But hold that thought.
That's an opinion piece written by an investment analyst, not a game industry expert. A game industry expert would tell you that no one's "engine" is usually especially valuable because engines grow on trees. You're not going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on an engine when you can license one for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The value of a studio like EBG is in the constellation of toolchains the developers wrote for their own engine. It is the entire package that is worth money if it works: the dev tools that specifically target the custom game engines that allow you to streamline development that can be worth millions of dollars. It is well-known inside the industry, less so outside, that a lot of game development is done in tools like Excel and converted into game data using giant and often unwieldy conversion scripts. Ask anyone that has ripped apart any MMO and they'll tell you that deep in the heart of the game is often a bunch of virtual file repositories with compressed text and binary formatted files that drive the game. The dev tools game developers use to create those are often horrible. I've heard of map editors that are comparable to using Notepad to write web pages.
You also have to be careful about what things are called because names of things are often created for branding purposes. Two different things might be called the same thing to reinforce branding, like the branding of a technology family. Unity 3 and Unity 4 are both the Unity game engine, but the are not the same game engine.
But we're also descending down a quote tree and losing context. This is what @RehctansBew originally said:
In context, I assume what he meant was not the base underlying engine, but the "proprietary" parts that were specific to MCOC: the customizations that turned the generic engine into the MCOC engine. It is that very custom engine that I'm claiming is a dead end and wouldn't be reused. What Kabam is doing with the EBG technology is that one group is evolving the Fuse/Sparx platform, and then games are forking off that technology and customizing it for that specific game. MCOC might have been written with Platform 2.0, but Transformers was written in Platform 3.0. It didn't take 2.0MCOC and then add stuff to it to make it 2.0MCOC+Transformers. That seems unlikely to me.
It seems doubly unlikely to me because when Kabam discussed the problems with timing and Parry back around 12.0, they claimed they needed to migrate the game to a new "engine" which is probably a colloquial statement but it almost certainly means they took at least one major component of the working infrastructure - most likely the engine that runs the actual game on the mobile device - and replaced a major component of it (my guess: the Unity platform). They also said something else interesting: they had to use "vendors" to work on that process. I.e. outside subcontracted developers. Their own people alone didn't do this.
That means the simple model of Kabam having a single platform and making a bunch of different games on it can't be true. It has to be a lot more messy, and almost certainly that is because the "Fuse and Sparx" name refers less to the technology and more to the developer tools that work with those technological pieces. That's how someone can claim that Transformers is the "first" game to use those tools. Because those names no longer refer to the same thing they did when MCOC was written. And the problems we have with MCOC don't exist in the same way on Transformers. They share an evolutionary tree, but they are not build on the same technological components.
a comment doesn't have to be flagged to be breaking our rules - flagging is just a way for people to report comments that ARE breaking the rules.
@Rogue42
It's apparent from the memes and gifs you post on other things that you might appreciate that.
Well I flagged a comment that was Off-Topic (against Rule #2) and I got a Formal Warning for my trouble. I won't be doing that again.
They aren't intentionally destroying the game. They are pretty much the definition of penny wise buy pound foolish. This new AW is a great example. In the short term they are probably making some money on groups buying AW wins. In the long term, this awful aspect of their game will make more spenders quit.
ON the other hand, had they tweaked AW and made it something people loved (and fixed the rewards system) they would get more people excited about AW and keep the spenders around.
They aren't intentionally destroying the game. They are pretty much the definition of penny wise buy pound foolish. This new AW is a great example. In the short term they are probably making some money on groups buying AW wins. In the long term, this awful aspect of their game will make more spenders quit.
ON the other hand, had they tweaked AW and made it something people loved (and fixed the rewards system) they would get more people excited about AW and keep the spenders around. [/quote]
I must admit, today we won by using diversity. It was a 100% to 100%.... Our players don't find AW fun, and we 'half' joke that the worst the defender the sooner we need to place them on defense. I don't know what to think. Sooo we just keep on keeping on...
Yup, somebody pass me the aloe vera.
Wondering why they came out of beta that way, and why they take upto next month cycle to fix, if at all.
Now I'm debating flagging your post. It's off-topic. What to do, what to do...