So sick of prioritisation

[Betelgeuzah]

You make it sound like SE's stable of programmers are a bunch of idiots or something. They can learn if they have to.

Most of them over there are all using the same engine, anyway. That was the whole point of Crystal Tools - a unified in-house custom-made engine so that everyone is familiar with the programming, even if they are from different teams.

Yes, they can learn- does that mean the process will be any faster? Managing a bunch of ignorant programmers (not saying this in an insulting tone) will not make the process any faster- it will slow them down, if anything. Especially if the feature ends up being full of bugs, and you bet it will be. it's not just about being familiar with the engine or the code either- the people need to work together efficiently, and the existing team, top management aside perhaps, can work with each other better than some random-san's from the 5 floors below can. That's more important than you'd think.

MMO is not a normal game and can't be developed like one. Even the Crystal tools is a greatly modified version of it- how much does this game remind you of versus or XIII? It's not as simple as being able to program for XIV if you worked for XIII.

It's a risky move and may end up hurting them more than helping them- not to mention it slows down their other projects.

They may have pulled some workforce from XI, though, that's reasonable considering the similarities between the two, and the fact both games are worked on in the same dev division.

[Rentahamster]

Yes, they can learn- does that mean the process will be any faster? Managing a bunch of ignorant programmers (not saying this in an insulting tone) will not make the process any faster- it will slow them down, if anything. Especially if the feature ends up being full of bugs, and you bet it will be. it's not just about being familiar with the engine or the code either- the people need to work together efficiently, and the existing team, top management aside perhaps, can work with each other better than some random-san's from the 5 floors below can. That's more important than you'd think.

Whatever the case may be, it all pretty much comes down to the fact that the development teams over at Square Enix are horribly managed and terribly unoptimized. It takes them 5 years to make a so-so game whereas other developers take 2 years to make an awesome game.

Given the vast amount of resources at SE's disposal, they should be many times more productive than they are and than they have been up until now. However, they are not. And like Wada said in his "I'm sorry we just lost 12 billion yen" report, it'll take at least 1 to 2 years to fix.


EXAMPLE - take a look at this game (First Person Shooter) that is currently in development.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/de...-hawken/714433

Looks pretty damn sweet, huh? It's beautiful, has both great aesthetics and pretty graphics, looks to have great gameplay, and the CEO's philosophies on game balance and promoting good gameplay are pretty spot-on.

Guess how many people are on the dev team?

6 employees and 3 interns.


Step up your game, Square Enix!

[Betelgeuzah]

Whatever the case may be, it all pretty much comes down to the fact that the development teams over at Square Enix are horribly managed and terribly unoptimized. It takes them 5 years to make a so-so game whereas other developers take 2 years to make an awesome game.

Given the vast amount of resources at SE's disposal, they should be many times more productive than they are and than they have been up until now. However, they are not. And like Wada said in his "I'm sorry we just lost 12 billion yen" report, it'll take at least 1 to 2 years to fix.

The only relevant fact here is that they had huge trouble with developing crystal tools which caused their games to be delayed significantly. XIII-2 is xoming out in 2 years as opposed to what, 6-7 for XIII? That's what happens when the game engine you develop for actually works like it should.

XIV is in the frontline of their rehauling dev- and management process plans as well, so I have no idea what this outburst has to do with anything. Unless you want to beat a dead horse, in which case have fun.

[Rentahamster]

The only relevant fact here is that they had huge trouble with developing crystal tools which caused their games to be delayed significantly. XIII-2 is xoming out in 2 years as opposed to what, 6-7 for XIII? That's what happens when the game engine you develop for actually works like it should.

FFXIII-2 is only taking 2 years because the core programming is already finished from FXIII. They hardly have to do anything new, and they can use all the art assets that they threw out from FFXIII.

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/01/13...-fantasy-xiii/

FF-Reunion summarized an interview (from Dengeki?) with Isamu Kamikokuryou, Final Fantasy XIII’s art director, where he talks about some of the deleted areas.

Nora, Snow’s hero squad, at one time had a secret base within Lebreau’s shop. A full space was made for Lightning’s home, which included a park. One of the game’s amusement parks also had a zoo too.

These areas were running in an unreleased build of Final Fantasy XIII, but were cut from the final version due to considerations about game balance and game volume. Kamikokuryou says there is enough lost Final Fantasy XIII content was removed to make another title.

I have no idea what this outburst has to do with anything.

It has to do with my disappointment that the greatness of Squaresoft has been slowly but surely degrading over time, and that the games they are creating now lack the vision and the brilliance of the games they made in the past.

[Betelgeuzah]

FFXIII-2 is only taking 2 years because the core programming is already finished from FXIII. They hardly have to do anything new, and they can use all the art assets that they threw out from FFXIII.

Uh-huh. They can use some of the unused assets, that much is said in the article, the rest is you making stuff up. Unless you want to link me to a different article.

It has to do with my disappointment that the greatness of Squaresoft has been slowly but surely degrading over time, and that the games they are creating now lack the vision and the brilliance of the games they made in the past.

and why is it that you felt necessary to post this kind of verbal diarrhea in a thread discussing why priorization is necessary, for a game that does not operate according to SE's previous standards anymore? You also tricked me into actually responding to this bitchfest.

Sigh.

[Rentahamster]

Uh-huh. They can use some of the unused assets, that much is said in the article, the rest is you making stuff up. Unless you want to link me to a different article.

http://www.gamespot.com/ps/rpg/final...s_6026421.html

Nomura explained that Final Fantasy X-2 was able to be released since it utilized the Final Fantasy X engine, allowing production of the game in one year at only half the usual development scale of a Final Fantasy title.

The hard work is already done. All they need to do now is just add some additional gameplay elements, write a story, and stick in the rest of their unused assets.

and why is it that you felt necessary to post this kind of verbal diarrhea in a thread discussing why priorization is necessary, for a game that does not operate according to SE's previous standards anymore?

This was a discussion about the productivity of development teams, was it not?

[Betelgeuzah]

http://www.gamespot.com/ps/rpg/final...s_6026421.html

What this tells us is that X-2 used X's engine, which made them able to complete the game sooner. A new engine was made for X, which made the dev process slower. So, what's your point? This is exactly what I said before. They had trouble with the crystal tools, now that it is ready the dev process is faster.

More importantly, most developers use 3rd party engines which allows them to develop the games faster as well. They are not in the same position as SE was back then. They failed with the development of their in-house engine, and while it is evident that their game development is not as well managed as it could be, it has less to do with their recent delays (and in some cases the lack of quality) than you'd think.

I certainly hope they'll pull their shit together when developing the next generation engine (it is being developed as we speak!). They can't screw it like they did the CT.

What that article tells us is that now that crystal tools is ready, developing new games for it is faster. Yay.

The hard work is already done. All they need to do now is just add some additional gameplay elements, write a story, and stick in the rest of their unused assets.

I guess there's nothing hard about developing games then... considering as long as you buy rights to use a game engine for your game, the hard part is already over and the game is almost ready.

This was a discussion about the productivity of development teams, was it not?

Was I wrong in assuming this thread had something to do with XIV? I'm sorry if I misunderstood.