what? Dude your perceptions are bizarre to say the least. Smaller devs are the ones who use outsourcing because they can’t afford to hire a giant permanent inhouse art team. Out-sourcing is so popular now (and it really is) because it is more cost effective.
EA will use both inhouse and outsource I’m sure but their inhouse will be huge compared to FS. It’s 2 very different ways of working and at the end of the day is entirely decided by the publisher who will always choose the cost effective route (ie outsource asset making to china and other cheaper places instead of hiring a team of expensive locals who will not be utilised all year around). A full Swedish art team year salary would be insanely more than a few months of outsourcing to Asia.
I think you have some somewhat unrealistic views of how developers operate.
No one is saying it wouldn’t be a lot of work but it’s not their hobby. It’s their livelihood.
Oh and that asset you posted above - if that isn’t kitbashed then I will eat my socks. Those vents and screens will be used EVERYWHERE a million times over. The whole industry is a giant kitbash nowadays. Which is fine if it works (which is does) but is why the scripting is the stuff that adds the most challenge to a level.
Making levels in games like this is the bread and butter of dev team who’ve made multiple successful similar and expansive games.
If you disagree then let’s agree to disagree as I feel I am repeating myself now.
Outsource to an extent yes obviously. I mean we can literally see that they did contract some companies for 3d art they contracted 3 major companies and a few small ones. Overall adding about 60 more 3d artists for launching the game. But I doubt they are still contracting all of these and again these are still not big budget AAA company size.
They contracted mostly european companies and one chinese company that added 37 3d artists (for game launch). Less then half of all 3d artists for game launch. I mean you can just check these things. Im just telling you they are doing the majority of the work in house, and even what they outsource is a fraction of a full AAA studio.
I just prefer things to be done more ethically and for devs to be treated better and I am okay with things taking longer as a consequence. I also think this approach leads to better games in general instead of soulless slop.
I would really much rather have devs who treat their job as a hobby with passion and interest.
I would rip the meshes but the tool to do so is paid and I cant be bothered right now. I went and flew around the entier hub area, cant find anything to suggest that they kit bashed this. Also kitbashing is often harder then just making things from scratch and in this case, besides the vent maybe, this thing would be easier to make from scratch. The texture on the screen is 100% reused but the screen itself isnt, you can see the texture and the screen dont line up at all its just a generic screen texture that is used in 1000 different places. But the screen itself is literally just a extrusion and a bevel lol.
Anyways yes there is a bit of “kit bashing” happening here as this same desk is used on most of the stations around the morning star but thats not really my point. That vent definitely isn’t used anywhere else, its not even particularly complex really.
If you can find another instance of that vent being used ill be very suprised.
Still doesnt really change the fact that just the hub has probably around ~500 unique meshes as a low ball. I dont know exactly how the meshes are divided here.
I’m advocating for severe lapses in competence to fall upon someone else than me, in this case people that are responsible for said lapse in competence.
Look you wanna pretend that breaking the renderer, breaking the mesh streamer, introducing a memory leak and then leaving for a vacation is some form of virtuous act and something that deserves a respect…go ahead but do it without me and spare me the lecture, thanks!
I’ve worked for a gaming company that made a plane/tank/ships game and i used to think they were pretty disrespectful and ruthless when it comes to relations with their players, but if they released the hotfixes in the same fashion Fatshark did, we would see them rolled back within an hour and we would get the stuff fixed by the next day…instead of waiting a week for a hotfix that made it worse!
I really havent noticed that many issues. I mean I dont fully agree with their decisions here but id rather people get to enjoy holidays then fix minor issues in a videogame that really dont matter that much.
Assuming you mean Gaijin… Uh like your comparing mild incompetence to the literal biblical antichrist wtf man.
“how it is” and “how you’d like it” are not matching up here. At all.
And I am not wasting my time finding vents in multiple levels to show you recycling of assets. There are loads of examples in this game and you’d be blind not to notice it.
Publishers don’t give a damn about ethics. They care about money.
A mid sized studio I worked in (probably similar size to FS) well over 10 years ago used outsourcing for loads of things especially 3D art assets and that was before outsourcing really took off. It’s rife now because it is cost effective. You not liking it doesn’t make it untrue I’m afraid.
I guess we should expect nothing from devs at FS right? Can’t possibly have them making content for their own game?! Far too difficult! They should all just sit back and relax. i’m sure the publisher will be happy with that.
EDIT: Just in case it wasn’t clear - nowhere in my OP did I say I expected multiple maps to land at the same time or in an unrealistic timeframe. I just want them next. (i.e. priority). You acting like I have demanded them within the month or something, which I never did.
Edit: Just moving all the pointless stuff to the bottom because I genuinely don’t think it matters all that much lol. I honestly have no idea what the point of that entire argument was.
I dont know where you are getting this idea from?
That is my origional response. Where in there (or anywhere) have I said that we shouldnt get new maps or anything? I have literally just said its going to take some time and I understand why.
More specifically I was making a point that VT2’s map design is much easier to do then Darktide’s. Thats really my main point idk why we got into this side tangent about how much exactly Fatshark is outsourcing and whatnot. Just check the credits they didn’t have that many people working on the game and I doubt they have more now.
TBH I think that VT2 development should probably be stopped by now, or handed off to another studio. And FS should focus more of their efforts onto darktide already. I would rather darktide get more updates, but as it is I get that its easier to add maps to VT2 so thats why VT2 gets more maps.
Really Pointless Stuff:
Well in this case it happens to be both lol. You can not like how fatshark is ran but that wont change how they run the company. And I also prefer the way they run their company overall so Im okay with it. I just dont think expecting fatshark to restructure and expand is worth doing.
Darktide is self published…?
I found about 15 different vent assets. Some are reused multiple times but always as a part of a larger asset (Such as that table). The same vent is never used between different assets. And like that makes sense because it would probably take about as long to modify the vent to fit the new shape required for the asset as it would to just make a new vent. Its not particularly complex geometry there.
I just gave you the number. Yes FS does outsource but not that much. Yeah its likely that like 50% of the assets in this game are outsourced, but that’s likely mostly the less important stuff. So they had about 20 artists in house, for the launch of the game contracted about 100 extra artists and about ~50% of that are Chinese. And thats for the launch of the game, obviously there is going to be more stuff contracted and rushed for launch with regular content updates probably being handled more in house. Idk it could be the same ratio or maybe they are exclusivley contracting random chinese companies for consistent updates… In that case I suggest they hire different companies lol.
What do you mean by minor issues? Our premade is short of two people because their game now runs at 30 fps, still waiting for a fix. After one of the hotfixes one of our friends has to decide between playing DT or being on discord. My collegue almost returned his playstation, thinking the console is dying after the hotfixes!
The company that for most of its existence operated with everything we made is pure gold because we made it and admitting to a mistake would mean defeat got over time to a point where it has better patching culture than most and is ready to rollback within an hour on three platforms at once!
Shocker, right?
If the gaming world equivalent of mangy rabid hyenas managed, what’s the excuse here for breaking stuff and then leaving for a vacation? Or releasing half baked stuff well knowing you gonna leave for a vacation soon?
Idk I have no knowledge of any particularly bad issues currently, nor have I seen any myself or seen particularly many reports in the performance feedback section. Well beyond the usual ocasional performance issues that are in literally every game ever, but clearly they are constrained to a minority of systems? Idk I don’t see a flood of reports in the performance feedback section of the forum complaining anymore then usual. I mean its nothing compared to some of the updates gaijin pushed lol.
Well reverting the update would mean removing a class people paid for. So since the performance issues aren’t that major that is off the table. And the alternative is forcing people to work over the holidays, I mean 1: Very rude move. 2: Might actually be illegal if its in their contract.
00:29:22.097 [D3D12_RESOURCE] Render Target ‘#ID[60f3d04d247b73b4]’ was not released, refcount: 10
00:29:22.097 [D3D12_RESOURCE] Render Target ‘#ID[df10df4a8ef95522]’ was not released, refcount: 10
00:29:22.098 [D3D12_RESOURCE] Render Target ‘#ID[567e683f9ea1f34c]’ was not released, refcount: 10
00:29:22.101 [D3D12_RESOURCE] Render Target ‘#ID[60a1b6186dddd602]’ was not released, refcount: 7
00:29:22.101 [D3D12_RESOURCE] Render Target ‘#ID[755c1ae405b532ef]’ was not released, refcount: 7
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘#ID[492e409b]’ has still registered 0 b used and 131072 b allocated
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘#ID[492e409b]’ has still registered 0 b used and 262144 b allocated
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘10df4a8ef95522]’ has still registered 0 b used and 131072 b allocated
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘#ID[492e409b]’ has still registered 0 b used and 131072 b allocated
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘7b73b4]’ has still registered 0 b used and 131072 b allocated
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘#ID[492e409b]’ has still registered 0 b used and 262144 b allocated
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘#ID[492e409b]’ has still registered 0 b used and 262144 b allocated
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘#ID[492e409b]’ has still registered 0 b used and 131072 b allocated
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘#ID[60f3d04d247b73b4]’ has still registered 0 b used and 131072 b allocated
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘]’ has still registered 0 b used and 2097152 b allocated
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘#ID[492e409b]’ has still registered 0 b used and 131072 b allocated
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘#ID[492e409b]’ has still registered 0 b used and 131072 b allocated
00:29:22.178 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘#ID[492e409b]’ has still registered 0 b used and 131072 b allocated
00:29:22.529 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘default_heap_constant_buffer’ has still registered 0 b used and 65536 b allocated
00:29:22.529 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘vertex_buffer’ has still registered 0 b used and 1644167168 b allocated
00:29:22.529 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘index_buffer’ has still registered 0 b used and 230686720 b allocated
00:29:22.530 warning: [DummyRegistryAllocator] Registry ‘D3D12Memory’ has still registered 0 b used and 1878982656 b allocated
The renderer is busted, the mesh streamer is busted, tile staging is all over the place (which people right now experience as sound issues, but its much worse), there’s a memory leak and the shader cache just can’t wait to corrupt itself…and its like that for over a month, 1/12 of a year!
And its a result of a patch that was supposed to make the game better, right?
The update should have been better tested and not released in such state and made worse by hotfixes, sorry no sorry. And while i can agree that rolling back the DLC patch would have been a disaster for Fatshark, there is no excuse for the hotfixes not focusing on the technical side of things and instead letting it stew for over a month!
Arguing that map making is ‘difficult’ could easily be construed as an argument against making them, when replying to a topic asking for more maps. Otherwise why else state the obvious?
Again, you’re acting like they’re hobbyists instead of running a professional business of games development full of top tier specialists.
Map making to a games dev company of this calibre/experience is not “difficult" (which is a nonsensical term in this context). It is just time Vs cost and return.
Well, let’s not forget the many concept art works they would need to do to show to GW.
I’d say the real difficulty is to appease the GW suits that they meet with every week so they can see what FatShark is working on. You just know that it’ll take a lot of time to please them, with how they can get pissy over the most miniscule of details that they would consider “lore-inaccurate”.
I honestly think that’s what takes them the longest. Before they can even get to work on adding anything, they have to appease the GW with these ideas, concepts art and lore implications, and it still can all be just tossed into the trash because the suits didn’t like it, and told them to go back to the drawing board, and start again.
Yes this is also another moving part to the process but I imagine they would simply be invited to key review presentations at milestones. This could be for absolutely anything and could cover various topics at once, including level segments, New pitch ideas, concepts, 3d models etc.
In the same meeting you would probably also have some publisher suits where they wrestle for power. I can’t imagine that would make for fun meetings so perhaps they’re separate but it would make sense if they all say in the same presentations.
I doubt they would meet weekly. That would be a hindrance more than a help. If it’s confirmed they meet weekly then geez that is pretty crazy.
You are right that a lot of the background material in DT take considerable man-hours to make, and are rightly impressive.
One point: We can’t take the detail-level of The Mourningstar as being indicative of the detail-level requried of most playable maps.
The mourningstar is basically the game lobby and no actual combat takes place there. It’s largely responsible for players first impressions as they log into the game (besides the intro mission on the ship we escape, which is also unusually highly detailed and runs very poorly on many systems for that reason). It was deliberately made detailed and impressive in a way the normal combat maps aren’t because first impressions aesthetics are important to establishing this as a proper 40k world game.
That means it can be made much more detailed without it impacting how the game feels to play in practice.
When you walk around in the Mourningstar it’s clear a lot more effort was put into every architectural detail of the place than has been put into any other playable map with combat. In the normal playable maps there is a lot of re-used both architectural and general clutter/doodad assets. Doors, doorframes, stairs, steps, ladders, railings, guardrails, lamp posts, lights, barrels, boxes, terminals, cogitators etc. etc. etc.
I feel like those two screenshots are rather cherrypicked. VT2 maps can absolutely have a lot of detail:
What needs to be dropped is the black and white way of thinking about topics like this. It’s neither “easy and enjoyable” nor “hard and miserable”. It’s somwhere in the middle. Technology might have improved, but it doesn’t mean that it is that much faster and easy than 15 years ago (also adding the fact that, yes, DT’s maps are far ore complex compared to VT2 maps). All the while, a whole team is definitely much more manpower than just a single modeler.
But we need to stop acting like it’s something that’s just easy and it should take them very little time because none of us actually worked in this industry as long as they did. So we shouldn’t assume things like that because then we start to believe things like “They are incompetent/lazy becasue it should take a small amount of time to do and yet it took them very long”.
Even FatShark devs themselves have touched up upon this topic. In the Jeficus interview with the design director, at some point the guy tells Jeficus that it is definitely an issue they have where they have to add something to the game and they think it will take them as little as 1 week but then ends up taking them at least a month because it was much more complicated than they have believed. Even the newest No Man’s Land map has been worked on for a long while by just one guy before he got some help from the rest of the team.
So it is never that simple as “They have teams that definitely always work together on a single project so it should take them very little time to add new things but it does so we must assume the worst”.
Why is the internet always has people trying to make nuanced topics seem black and white? I’ll never understand it.
Are you talking about the vent looking things on the bottom? or ‘screen’ texture on the top, because if its the bottom those vents are literally scattered all over the mourningstar
Yes, it is confirmed. In the Arbites interview, it was revealed that FatShark is obligated to meet with GW weekly to discuss what they are going to add to the game. And it still takes FatShark 3 months to add anything new, so just think how much concepts have been declined by GW because they felt it wouldn’t fit into Darktide.
I know it’s their IP, but just think for a second how much more we could have had if GW wasn’t looking over the devs shoulder almost 24/7.
Well this is actually my point. I am fed up with people discussing “easy" and “difficult” with regards to games developing by a professional studio. It is not a valid metric. As I mentioned here:
It is time vs money. I’m sure this team would be capable of making whatever they wanted if time/money wasn’t an issue.
no one has argued that it would take very little time though? If they have then yes I agree with your stance, but that is a point about time/cost rather than “difficulty”.
I worked exclusively in the games industry for over 10 years and have dabbled since moving to another industry but that’s beside the point especially as many studios behave differently. I’ve worked in a few different major studios and honestly the pipeline is really similar when it boils down to it.
I’m just fed up with people acting like FS are hobbyists and doing us a favour by creating stuff. They’re not modders. They’re professionals and we’re their consumers.
people keep saying “its difficult!” about standard subjects and I just find that baffling. I’ve seen AAA games made from the ground up (including engine!) and have stood over the shoulder of people coding AI (from scratch) for NPC behaviour and pathing etc. I am under no illusion that making a game is almost impossible to grasp for many people due to the near-incomprehensible complexity and scope of it all. But that said, when a game is released and it is content being added, then the complexity is already navigated to a very manageable degree.
The only time the word “difficult” should be used is when it relates to engine limitations IMO. Like how flying enemies in the current engine would be “difficult” or fixing the sound bugs would be “difficult”.
But making a new map (an exceptionally standard procedure for a games dev company) cannot be branded “difficult”, if you catch my drift. Strictly speaking everything is bloody difficult in games development! But that is what studios specialise in and that’s the point.
Well blimey…I do feel very sorry for FS in that respect then. Weekly is guaranteed to hinder rather than help. And this is also likely the reason for this:
It’s like that meme of the designer with the boss stood over his shoulder whilst he’s nudging the logo left then right forever.
We can’t let GW take all the heat though. The directors still make decisions that get proposed and I highly doubt that it was GW’s idea to release 2 classes almost back-to-back and go eons without a new full size map. That is surely on the Directors table.
Of course there are other things that help longevity but maps are very central to the core experience. Think about exposure from players - weapons etc are only for some classes (some people may never bother to use even half the weapons, especially when meta has been shared) and the same goes for talents etc. Some people don’t even bother trying other classes or stick to 1 they prefer. They are specific whereas maps are universal. They are played by all and changing environment and scenery often is a very affective way to give the feeling of variety. This is somewhat ironically amplified by the limited map rotation because it means the more maps there are then the rarer their appearance will be - this adds to the variety and longevity.
If all the modifiers were released then this affect would be cranked up A LOT.
New enemies/faction is another universal factor and would have a massive impact on variety but it’s also arguably the biggest job out of all of them.
Some new maps are relatively low hanging fruit in comparison. A new faction is nigh-on a new game entirely! (Greentide next I hope!).
