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Capcom Implements Lost Planet Beta Feedback

Posted by Zonk on from the astonishing dept.

Chris Kohler has the news, over at Game|Life, that Capcom is actually implementing changes to the upcoming title Lost Planet based on feedback from online component Beta testers. The multiplayer version of the game has been available via Xbox Live for some time now, and the outcry against certain game elements has resulted in fundamental changes to the game's design. From the article: "First of all, due to user feedback, next to the name of each host hosting a match will be a readout of the number of players already in the room compared to the maximum number of players allowed, so players will know how full a room is before they enter. The second update will be that if the player tries to enter a room that has been closed or where the match has already begun, the player will not be forced back out to the first player match menu to then re-search for games.. Rather, the player will be able to immediately browse and select a different session to join There will also be a button set to allow the player to Refresh the match list without having to perform a Quick Match search again."

35 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. Whoa... by Odin_Tiger · · Score: 1

    Game developers of the world: Sit down, shut up, and start taking notes! This is how you turn a beta into a game people will actually pay for before the 'Gold Edition' (with all the patches of the last year included) is released.

    --
    Unpleasantries.
    1. Re:Whoa... by HappySqurriel · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Honestly, there is as much damage done by implementing requested changes from a beta-test as there is from leaving the game it was. Most beta-tests are filled with hardcore fans of the genre (or the series) and are likely going to want features which the majority of users will not care about (or might see as negatives). There is a reason why there are so many games which are loved by the hardcore group that are ignored by the masses; and reasons why hardcore gamers complain that a highly successful game (WoW) is not hardcore enough for them.

    2. Re:Whoa... by Kiba+Ruby · · Score: 1

      Feedbacks are good, but the real trick is thinking what do they REALLY WANT. Not what they SAY THEY WANT.

      --
      Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-RMS
    3. Re:Whoa... by XenoRyet · · Score: 2, Insightful

      While your point is definitly true in the vase majority of situations, it sounds like most of the changes made here were really stuff that was so obvious it makes you wonder what they were doing over there that they didn't think of it in the first place. It's all stuff an internal beta should have caught.

      --
      If forums teach us anything, it is that logic and critical thinking should be required courses in the public schools.
    4. Re:Whoa... by DDLKermit007 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually, the problem is that Capcom doesn't seem to know what the hell they are doing. Most of the changes they are making are FUNDAMENTAL things US game makers figured out years ago. It is more evident however if you look at PC games (console developers can be pretty damn lazy). Almost everything they have stated thats changing is pretty simple stuff that should have been worked out in a few hours by a decent online dev-team.

    5. Re:Whoa... by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 1

      Most beta-tests are filled with hardcore fans of the genre (or the series) and are likely going to want features which the majority of users will not care about (or might see as negatives).

      If your beta testing pool consists of people who have volunteered their time to your company for free because they loved your last game and think it's l33t that they get to play your new one before anybody else, that kind of scenario is unavoidable.

      If you make an effort to have a beta testing group that will actually be a representative sampling of your entire target market, then a beta test can be beneficial. But running a test group in that way takes more time and money.

    6. Re:Whoa... by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 1

      the problem is that Capcom doesn't seem to know what the hell they are doing. Most of the changes they are making are FUNDAMENTAL things US game makers figured out years ago.

      But then on the other hand, US game makers STILL haven't figured out how to make a side-scrolling action game as elegant, fun, challenging, or timeless as Mega Man. (Games like Viewtiful Joe show that Capcom still remembers how to do those, too.)

      Myself, I welcome the variety of game styles, strengths and shortcomings that come from developers of different geographical regions and cultures.

    7. Re:Whoa... by cowwie · · Score: 1

      This is Capcom... the same company that ignored the pleas of many gamers when Dead Rising was thoroughly unreadable on most TVs out there. Should we REALLY be telling other developers to take notes from their behaviour?

    8. Re:Whoa... by Thraxen · · Score: 1

      But if you satisfy the hardcore fans wouldn't it be a fairly safe assumption that casual fans will be pleased as well? I really can't think of an issue that hardcore fans would love but be a negative to casual fans. Anyway, look at what the article says they fixed. Those are issues that would annoy many people, hardcore or otherwise.

    9. Re:Whoa... by twistedsymphony · · Score: 1

      not necessarily, a lot hardcore fans are highly resistant to changes, if you use them as your only source of input you'd risk stagnating the title.

      For instance:if you come up with a whiz-bank new and innovative controls scheme that might make the game easier for first time player to pick up and learn, giving the game a broader appeal by making the controls simpler and more intuitive, most hardcore players would HATE that simply because they would have to re-train themselves how to play your game. Even if the change was for the better.

      Another scenario is adding TOO MUCH in the way of customization, taking on loads of in depth features is a hardcore fan's wet dream but it pushes away much of the casual market because you end up needing a background in how the game works just to play it. While some might argue developers shouldn't sell their ideals short for the sake of reaching a broader audience it really depends on what the developers goals are. if they want to make a simple an intuitive game then adding more complexity becomes counter productive, even if it risks aggravating the hardcore fan base.

      --
      Collector's Edition
    10. Re:Whoa... by HappySqurriel · · Score: 1

      But if you satisfy the hardcore fans wouldn't it be a fairly safe assumption that casual fans will be pleased as well? I really can't think of an issue that hardcore fans would love but be a negative to casual fans.

      The general rule is that a hardcore fan will likely be looking to add complexity to a game whereas a casual fan will likely be looking to reduce complexity.

      In WoW (as an example) there was a debate about what type of content should be added to the game, most hardcore fans wanted 40+ person raid instances which required long hours for multiple days in a week to complete while most casual fans wanted 5-10 man instances which could be completed in shorter bursts (possibly a multi-stage dungeon that could be completed in 2-4 hour bursts over multiple weeks). 40+ person raids are content which the majority of gamers would get little use out of, whereas the 5-10 man instances were content which did not satisfy the hard-core fan.

  2. They didn't have that already? by Hexedian · · Score: 1

    Player count, refresh button... Why do those changes sound like stuff that should have been in the game to begin with?

    1. Re:They didn't have that already? by MoriaOrc · · Score: 1

      They do sound obvious and they should be in just about every multiplayer game.

      Unfortunately, all the XBox Live developers never got that memo. Some manage to get the Players/Total working fine, but in almost every XBL game, when you try to enter a match and are rejected you will be pushed back several screens. It's annoying, but it's true of just about every game I've tried to play on live.

  3. A subtitle for this article: by Wilson_6500 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Capcom Discovers Basic Server Browser Principles."

    Seriously, how bone-headed do you have to be to NOT show your users how many people are in a server? Oh well. At least they have--unlike some companies--learned that people hate having to refresh server lists every time they fail to join a game, and really hate having to scroll through menus over and over for no reason at all. They're still doing better than some developers out there as far as server browser design.

    Perhaps fundamentally more important, why can't they implement dynamic joining of games in progress, like what most PC FPSes have done for years now? I hope that kind of crap doesn't start to become popular on PC, if that's what this console "matchmaking" nonsense is about. Let me find my own servers.

    1. Re:A subtitle for this article: by Joe5678 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm guessing the lack of ability to join a game in progess is due to the multiplayer being peer to peer rather than server based. It turns it into quite a different problem with a number of usability issues related to it.

  4. Good God... by complete+loony · · Score: 1

    How on earth did those issues get past QA in the first place? None of these "issues" should have ever been developed this way.

    --
    09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
    1. Re:Good God... by iocat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think this is Capcom's first big multi-player game, no? Let's cut them some freaking slack for testing and responding to the test, instead of bagging on them for what was (or wasn't) in a non-final product. (Who knows, those fixes may have been on the change list before the beta, or they may have been in a "wishlist, but let's see if they bitch about it because it's a pain to implement" category. I think Capcom's incredibly open development process with Lost Planet has been an awesome experiment, and I hope it's really successful for them -- it's a freaking great looking game.

      --

      Dude, I think I can see my house from here.

    2. Re:Good God... by falzbro · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Actually, this seems to be a console specific (Xbox specific?) issue. Many of the games that have multiplayer Live have serious matchmaking GUI issues, such as:
      • Issues that capcom mentions- not showing you how many you're going to play
      • Only 8 or so players at a time (likely because one of the consoles is the host vs. a dedicated server)
      • Once a match is complete, dropping you back to the main menu to re-search for another game instead of keeping you with the same players

      On the 360, I know that Prey, Saints Row, and a few others have these stupid issues. PGR3 must have been listening to feedback, as they issued a patch about 4 months after it came out that:
      • Shows the handle of who's talking while they're talking in-game
      • Implimented some new game modes (cat vs. mouse) that people were playing on their own (these may have been in earlier PGR games, I don't know

      Since MS has strict development guidelines now, such as all games must be at least 720p- one would think they'd set minimum standards of some of the aforementioned features in all live matches.

      --falz

    3. Re:Good God... by Dmala · · Score: 1

      GAH! Someday I'm going to snap, get a rocket launcher, and vaporize the next idiot who whines about QA when an obvious bug makes it into the field (or into the beta, as in this case). Did it ever occur to you that maybe the bug was found by QA, and then not fixed for any number of reasons? Like the developers or designers refuse to believe it's an important issue until there are hundreds of users screaming about it. Or bugs just go unfixed because management has decreed that the unreasonably short schedule is carved in stone. Not that that ever happens.

      And people wonder why I want to get a job driving a truck.

    4. Re:Good God... by Parias · · Score: 1

      Actually, this would be their second. Steel Battalion: Line of Contact was released a couple of years back to critical acclaim - at first. Then the connection errors arose en-masse, thanks to a broken server browser which did a poor job at reading a player's "connection quality" and refused to let most people who splurged the $200 required to get into the game in the first place even join any matches. Of course, all Capcom did was blame the player base and their ISPs and utterly refused to fix the problem; a patch was only released following months upon months of complaints (prior to which there was barely even any acknowledgement of a problem) - and even this failed to do anything to really fix the game, after which most players had already given up on it and moved on. Let's not even get started at their flawed beta program, which prioritized only players who had bought the original game directly through the Capcom website (most of whom had barely gotten past the game's fourth level, and then shelved it) while they disregarded their active forum and community base as potential beta candidates.

      But I'm not jaded. Honest!

    5. Re:Good God... by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      Yeah. I had a crap job at a call center back in '98. They had a bunch of documentation lying around for adjacent departments. I found one for this football game - it listed a whole bunch of genuinely stupid issues in the game. After most of them, some idiot had gone and made up some reason why it couldn't be fixed. I'm talking about minor UI issues and things like that, not screen screwups or anything. Issues that could be fixed quite easily. I swear, the guy was going out of his way to dream up something even remotely connected, so that he could write off the issue and avoid fixing it. Glad I never bought that program.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    6. Re:Good God... by AcidLacedPenguiN · · Score: 1

      well if you want to get technical LoC was only $50. . . I shelled out the $200 to get the first game and controller, and enjoyed it. By the time I bought LoC there were no players left. . . With that said, I'd be happy to play it with other people through one of the tunneling servers. . .

      --
      disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
  5. Re:Wait...they were listening? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    If they lost a planet, they should care. ;)

  6. Wow, what a misunderstanding. by danpbrowning · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I completely misunderstood that title. Here's what I thought it meant:

    A company named "Capcom Implements" has accidentally "Lost" their entire database of "Beta Feedback" for their upcoming game, "Planet".

    --
    Daniel
  7. Re:I just want to punch Microsoft in the neck... by DDLKermit007 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I dunno what fantasy world you live in, but almost every successful game on the Xbox received patches. Hell Live itself was a patch for the Xbox a year or two after it was released. Not exactly a good precedent. They often included an extra thing for the game too with the patch, but a patch, is a patch. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory required a patch due to a bad matchmaking bug, and Halo 2 has received multiple patches for issues all over the board. I remeber there were a ton more, but it's been so long I can't remeber specifics. MS had the same no patches allowed mentality then too they are supposed to have now. I laughed it then, and I still do. Before consoles had the finality of, "thats it" now more work can be done! Not anymore unfortunately. Were now buying beta versions of games on disk with final patches that get patches made for them.

  8. Re:I just want to punch Microsoft in the neck... by RasputinAXP · · Score: 1

    Uh, for allowing beta testing to happen?

    I don't see where "patching over Live" comes into this. Lost Planet's not out yet.

  9. In Other Words... by RexRhino · · Score: 1

    ... the Beta Testers demanded basic features that are included in like every single other multiplayer game.

  10. Capcom Develops Brand New Wheel! "It's Round!" by Trails · · Score: 1

    Seriously, this sounds like features that were mature in Half Life.

    Way to go! What will they come up with next? Perhaps a revolutionary notion of connecting computers together into a "network", or a device emitting a cohesive beam of parallel light called a "laser", or a protective layer around the Earth called the "ozone".

  11. Konami take note. by saintm · · Score: 1

    PES6 on 360 is fun to play DESPITE your ignorance of basic functions an online title should have.

    Capcom seem to grasp the concept that "next gen" does not mean higher resolution but 50% less features and lots of slow-down.

  12. That's the point isn't it? by Grismar · · Score: 1

    Isn't the whole point of beta-testing to get more testdata from a broad userbase and use the feedback to improve and finish your product? How is this news? Has the state of affairs in gameland deteriorated to a point where a developer actually doing something with beta-tester feedback is news?

    Players in online gaming seem to be forgetting that a beta-test is not a free trial, a cheap way to play games or a sneak preview. Although a beta can be useful to try a game for free, doesn't usually cost anything (and if it does, companies deserve punishment) and will give you an early look at a game, all of that is not the point.

    I'm well aware that that a lot of developers -seem- deaf to the feedback of their userbase, but honestly: a lot of this feedback consists of all sorts of unreasonable, unbalancing or simply impossible demands and gripes. That still leaves some, or perhaps quite a few depending on your point of view, developers that need to start paying attention. But I honestly doubt the OP has something news-worthy here.

  13. I don't understand why this is big news by MadJo · · Score: 1

    Why is this news? A software development company does what it's supposed to do...

    It should be common practice to implement feedback that got back from beta-testers. (perhaps not all, but certainly vital findings such as the ones mentioned here)

    In the corporate world, where testing is apparently better incorporated into software design, it's already done like that.

    I am a software tester, and when I find problems in software, the developers'd better solve it, otherwise the client will be notified of the problems in the software. (Every finding will be a 'known' issue, and its severity is marked with it in the documentation that comes with the piece of software, for management and other decision-making people to consider, and decide following the set levels of acceptance)

    --
    80 CC D8 AF AE D3 AB 54 B7 2E CE 67 C7
  14. Re:I just want to punch Microsoft in the neck... by brkello · · Score: 1

    Were now buying beta versions of games on disk with final patches that get patches made for them.

    The reason that console games in the past were "that's it" is because there was no effective way to patch them. If you believe past console games shipped with no bugs, then I don't know what sort of fantasy world you live in. The fact that consoles now have internet connections and hard drives allow them to be patched. A game in the past would have annoying UI issues and people would just have to accept it. But now, if the developer realizes they can improve something, they have a mechanism to do it.

    Not saying that it has the possibility of companies using the ship it now, fix it later method...but I am really not seeing people putting out games that should still be in beta.

    --
    Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
  15. Uh, dude, chill. The article is about a BETA TEST. by Malkin · · Score: 1

    In theory, they're trying to fix it before they ship it, so you don't have to deal with that kind of half-baked shit. :)

  16. Common sense by jgoemat · · Score: 1

    These "fixes" are just common sense. Who would design an interface that worked the way it did before the fixes? First off you can't tell if a server is full. Second, if you connect to a full server, you get kicked back to the main screen and have to search for servers all over again. That is just ridiculous.

  17. Why? by pokemonkiller · · Score: 1
    From the blurb here in Slashdot.

    has resulted in fundamental changes to the game's design. First, why is this even a news item? Second, I am sorry, but user names on rooms in the network display is NOT a "fundamental change to the game's design." As a matter of fact it is not part of the game design at all! It is a UI enhancement. Really, it should be a basic UI element.