Emergency and it's Future

[3C14]

just making this post right now, because there's been a lot of negative feedback. We waited 6 years for a game and I still enjoy emergency for over 5. Now don't get me wrong the game is good and the graphics are great. But what is the future I mean with this new engine and mod support like we've never seen before, can the moderators bring us out of the shit and deliver us an experience that this game should have brought. Yes the game is good but its very plain it's not as detailed as let's say the Los Angeles mod where you can break down doors to go into buildings etc. But it does have potential I feel, & I feel that the makers of the game made it so that when my daughters come into the game they can make it their own with less hassle than previous installments. I just want to know what thoughts are from everyone hopPAH is leaving the scene as I've been told but at the same time I want to know from everyone what they feel should come and what they feel they want from this game. I know the developers clothes to wash this form so maybe we should get a thread started to talk about this. Thanks for giving me the time to say what I feel.

[Chris07]

Future is bright. The possibilities (modding wise) is much larger than before. The level of control is much finer than EM4. The tools, while not lacking a learning curve, make many tasks much simpler.

 

Right now everything is still being decoded. With no official documentation yet, it's all really still fairly enigmatic. Once official documentation gets out there and a few of us diehards really sit down and start messing around, things will start to take off.

 

Sixteen Tons Entertainment was true to their word...it's a completely different game both under the hood and in-game. I'm super excited to start modding. Some people just don't like change. The whole performance thing is a small hiccup, I'm not sure why it's having such a demoralizing effect. It's as if people think that what they got 3 days ago is what the game will be forever.

 

I've already started planning a mod with a colleague of mine which I hope to one day be a worthy successor to the LA Mod.

[losangelesi]

If you don't think its complex enough, go through the editor. its not something we learn in 2 days. This is going to be a learning process over months and years to get the ins and outs.

[mlovetto22]

Lol. The game has been out for two days and the posts remain negative. This is the same way EM4 was when it was released.... you have to wait for more than two days to get high quality mods... jeez.

[Dosedmonkey]

I do wonder if most the people complaining are old enough to remember when the first Emergency game came out! I remember it in a PC Gamer demo CD in 2001 (2000?) I think it was.....

 

This game has so much potential its unreal. If you buy yourself a descenr gaming rig, and actually pay attention to whats been added. Rather then expecting LA Mod to come prepacked. You'll probably not need to swear in the post like a silly willy.

[3C14]

I understand complexity, I was the lead tester on http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?147768-SP-MP-Dynamic-Whole-Map-ArmA3-Missions-by-SaOk and let me not be the first to say we spent MONTHS fixing one bug with the mod that still isn't fixed 4 months later. I am just asking where people believe it will go in the future. Your thoughts and such.

[theparanoid]

I do wonder if most the people complaining are old enough to remember when the first Emergency game came out! I remember it in a PC Gamer demo CD in 2001 (2000?) I think it was.....

This game has so much potential its unreal. If you buy yourself a descenr gaming rig, and actually pay attention to whats been added. Rather then expecting LA Mod to come prepacked. You'll probably not need to swear in the post like a silly willy.

First verison was out in 1998.

[MikeyPI]

The problem the latest version of the game has stonewalled into is something prevalent in the gaming industry today.  Extremely fatal bugs that make working on things rather problematic.  Now in time these will be resolved but with what was expected vs what was delivered, it isnt hard to see why so many are upset.  To be honest the pricing point was simply too high for what was delivered as a "completed project", to me it seems like they added a few things to make life easier, oversimplified many things, and gave it a decent graphics overhaul that simply put I could've done without in preference for a more extensive gameplay. IMO this project is still very much in it's infancy, and that would be fine from a start-up developer, but it isnt acceptable from a company that has had several solid releases over the years, especially at the price they asked for it.  

 

Onto the performance issues, I can't help but feel that they should've caught most of these issues from get go long before it ever hit releasing.  Most people labor under the assumption that these are just simple issues that can be debugged and resolved in the current engine.  Well It's an "all new engine", with that comes the reality that there will be hard-coded limitations within the engine it's self, hopefully none of the performance issues people are experiencing fall into such a category, or this game will be quite well doomed before it gets started.  Performance and stability will rule the day of the fate of this game, it is NOT the community purchasing a game's responsibility to fix a game for the developers.  People must bear this in mind, I hope the devs will take the time to correct the performance and stability if possible, and if not to admit the faults and warn the consumer of these faults.  If they fail to make the product functional for the niche market that desires it, their fate will fall into the category of many other companies who've gained poor reputations within their market groups.

 

My final thoughts:

 

While I don't see this game as "doomed" or any other negative permanent setting, I do feel that it has gotten off on a rough footing due to the performance and gameplay related bug issues that have cropped up.  The ball is in the dev's court to rectify these issues as expediently as possible if they want this game to have a positive long term future.  If they opt to drag their feet on the fixes that are required to deal with performance and fatal issues, the community as a whole will feel rather cheated over it.  That type of result would be very deadly to the franchise, but I strongly believe they won't take that route (hopefully). 

 

People who were expecting the LA mod bundled into the game were sorely mistaken from the on-set, all you had to do was look at who got the "first look" with this game and you could tell who was their primary target in the marketing of this game.  The american class modders were a moot point to them, because in the whole the american modders are not where they make the most revenue, so in development the american mods (while very strong for 3 and 4) were not given much thought.  Eventually there will be mods for this game, but I can tell you flat out there won't be an LA mod type for this game for quite some time, people are struggling to just figure out how to add things into it, which is an integral part of just face-lifting the game, let alone going into in-depth modding capacity.  Some wish to assume the capabilities of the game without understanding it's limitations, where we are right now with understanding the editor in of it's self, not the engine or the script limitations should give quite a bit of pause into assuming "this is such a powerful tool".  Simple truth is nobody really knows what the editor or engine is really capable of yet, playing IN the editor is but a glimpse, realize the LA mod made use of much custom scripting to make the things people use so often in mods today.

[MedicalByte]

http://forum.emergency-planet.com/topic/19763-emergency-and-its-future/#entry285459

 

I concur exactly. You've hit what I've been thinking spot on.

 

I really hope the dev's make the right decisions and get things to where they ought to be as soon as is humanly possible.

[3C14]

I honestly feel cheated. I work full time security and can pay for some luxury as well as volunteer fire fighter. At the same time the game seems so plain like MikeyPI said, We have paid for a game that seems to be more like an alpha. I thought they would have taken the la mod/Manhattan mod, since they are the most game changing, and ran with the concept. I hope the devs come through and I sure as hell believe they will, being such a big studio. The price really kills me though. It is more like paying for early access. I mean the police have MINIMAL decals, the EMS have NONE. It just feels unfinished and un pollished. Praying for the best.

 

Steve

[OrigiHawk]

I honestly feel cheated. I work full time security and can pay for some luxury as well as volunteer fire fighter. At the same time the game seems so plain like MikeyPI said, We have paid for a game that seems to be more like an alpha. I thought they would have taken the la mod/Manhattan mod, since they are the most game changing, and ran with the concept. I hope the devs come through and I sure as hell believe they will, being such a big studio. The price really kills me though. It is more like paying for early access. I mean the police have MINIMAL decals, the EMS have NONE. It just feels unfinished and un pollished. Praying for the best.

 

Steve

They did take ideas from mods tho, just not american mods. The first mission is from a random freeplay even in the ERS Berlin mod :

 

[3C14]

Thank you I did not know this!

[theparanoid]

They appear to have taken at least an idea from LA mod.  Remember the repel script for swat office on helicopter.   I am close to unlocking said helicopter last night when I look at the help for in game.....It show swat officer repeling from said helicopter.  

[Dyson]

My main concern is how taxing the game is, the graphics themselves are nothing amazing (from screens) yet I can't even run low graphics. I can play almost any game out there between my two PCs, most of which with far better graphics than this game. I've played for around 10 minutes at 10FPS and given up. The graphics seem to be the only thing different in this game than Em4 and when I'm forced to play on low it makes no difference anyway.

 

Everyone keeps saying to only compare Em5 to Em4 vanilla, but I say that the developers knew about all the awesome mods we had available and took a huge step backwards from that rather than standing on the foundations of hours of people's work.

 

Overall I think it's a huge disappointment, but after playing Em2013 and all those other random installments I hadn't really high hopes. I think the community should continue to work as it has on making Em4 a good game, rather than fighting to work with whatever Sixteen Tons decided to dish out for $45 or whatever it was.

 

Just a final thought but I think the major salt in the wounds was purposely changing the model extensions and everything to stop backwards compatibilty, simply allowing a quick convert would have allowed modders to quickly move up to Em5, but it's always felt like the devs would much prefer everyone playing just the vanilla game and have seemed a little envious of mods such as LA, which brought way more interest to this game than the original game has.

[theparanoid]

Confirmed I just bought the swat heli in game.   It comes with 6 swat team member that fast rope or rebel from copter to ground.  These cops also appear to have guns....   I try and get a video up on it tomorrow. 

[Dosedmonkey]

First verison was out in 1998.

Was that in the UK too? Wow now you make me feel old!!

[Dosedmonkey]

Just a final thought but I think the major salt in the wounds was purposely changing the model extensions and everything to stop backwards compatibilty, simply allowing a quick convert would have allowed modders to quickly move up to Em5, but it's always felt like the devs would much prefer everyone playing just the vanilla game and have seemed a little envious of mods such as LA, which brought way more interest to this game than the original game has.

 

Backwards compatibility would suck in my mind, as mods should be creating much higher poly models in this game then EM4. And they should have diffuse and occulasion mapping one hopes.

 

I still find this game is a big BIG leap on from EM4. Hopefully once optomisation is sorted out, you can be wowed with the future mods.

[theparanoid]

Was that in the UK too? Wow now you make me feel old!!

Germany not sure about when the UK got it. But that was when the first game came out.

[Dosedmonkey]

Some wish to assume the capabilities of the game without understanding it's limitations, where we are right now with understanding the editor in of it's self, not the engine or the script limitations should give quite a bit of pause into assuming "this is such a powerful tool".  Simple truth is nobody really knows what the editor or engine is really capable of yet, playing IN the editor is but a glimpse, realize the LA mod made use of much custom scripting to make the things people use so often in mods today.

 

If you seen what people have done with LUA scripting in FPSCreator, you'd know LUA is a great scripting language for them to introduce.

 

Also some of the features I have already 'played' with, would of saved me about three weeks work, in to about 3 hours in EM4 for mapping! Why do you think so few maps got made for EM4, it was one of the rare occasions mapping in a game was more work then modeling and skinning and introducing assets to the game!

[riekelt]

Brand new rendering engine? pfft.

They're also for some reason using SkyX for their skybox, even though there is no way to see the sky in-game.

[momieboy]

I'm also asking myself the question why there isn't any documentation released regarding the editor. It was something they showed regularly and were proud of. But now that the game is released no one knows how to use it? It's like "Alright, we got your money, now figure it out yourself!" Concerning the patches its the same situation, no information whatsoever about the changes made to the game.

 

I'm not a modder myself but the lack of communication from the developers towards its playerbase seriously bothers me. Simply disrespectful if you ask me.  I read before that the german fanbase already had some things figured out on their own? So we as an english community are dependent on our own discoveries unless a person who speaks german and english would translate all findings and communicate them to both forums.

 

The aforementioned once again shows that this game was definately not ready for launch and should have been postponed once more. This should/would have resulted in a higher quality game and a better playing experience which is something this series as well as the devoted fanbase deserves. The modders and the fanbase in general made the previous installment to what it is today, a great game with a lot of diversity which definately attracted a lot more fans and enthousiasts. What we and the modders get in return for their hard work, creativity and dedication is basically a slap in the face.

[MikeyPI]

If you seen what people have done with LUA scripting in FPSCreator, you'd know LUA is a great scripting language for them to introduce.

 

Also some of the features I have already 'played' with, would of saved me about three weeks work, in to about 3 hours in EM4 for mapping! Why do you think so few maps got made for EM4, it was one of the rare occasions mapping in a game was more work then modeling and skinning and introducing assets to the game!

I've seen LUA scripts used before, the question is the limitation of the game engine within this particular framework.  If it has open-ended capabilities then it is one thing but if it is restrictive then it doesnt really matter much.  Time will tell what is possible in this game and what is not.  

[Dosedmonkey]

Brand new rendering engine? pfft.

They're also for some reason using SkyX for their skybox, even though there is no way to see the sky in-game.

Skybox not for cut scenes? And you can zoom in to horizontal on EM5 too...