General Discussion

[iHawks 3]

I posted this as a reply in another thread and thought it was worth sharing here.

 

As much as I love MV, I don't think the game is going to hold up in the gaming market very well. I think the player base is going to consist of the old school MV players and that's it. In it's current state, the game will not attract new players as the standard for video games is a lot higher than what they were 10 years ago when MV was in it's prime.

 

The game is built on an engine called "Gamebryo". Yeah I hadn't heard of it either until just now. For context, go look at their website. I'm no developer so I don't really know jack about shit, but from the looks of it, it's no Unreal Engine 5.

The shaders don't even compare to the graphics you'd find in a free indie game for mobile and I do not think they're going to get better any time soon.

 

The controls are the biggest learning curve in the game and because it's so meta it's impossible for a complete beginner to fare well in a match against higher level players for a veeeeery long time. A solution to this might be to nerf swapping to lower the threshold for new players, but that would completely eliminate the games most essential and unique feature and kill off the current player base.

 

From what I can gather, the dev team are Korean and from the several spelling and grammar errors I've seen in their posts on these forums I think it's safe to assume that they don't speak English very well, which is unfortune because it's the language literally everybody on hear speaks. This of course raises the barrier of communication with the fans.

The game doesn't have any social media presence either, which isn't always a bad thing, but in this case I think it's very bad as we have no idea who's really behind the game and I haven't seen the team interacting with community which is a big red flag.

 

If the dev team is aiming to create a nostalgia filled game for the true die hard fans of MicroVolts that isn't going to need a lot of resources to keep up and running, then i think the devs are doing fine.

 

If the devs want to create a game that is going to be enjoyable for both old and new players, generate income, and thrive; here are the changes I would make:

GRAPHICS

Completely re-design the shaders to match today's standard.

Yes, Minecraft was also released in 2009 and still looks the same, but you're not Minecraft.

SOCIAL

Focus on marketing.

The game already has a good foundation so IF the game they release is actually good, I think it will spread like wildfire. Social media marketing will fuel that fire.

The current team currently has no idea how to engage with the community and keep people interested.

!!!!!!ENGAGE WITH THE COMMUNITY!!!!! 

Hire a community manager THAT SPEAKS ENGLISH. (my DM's are open, wink wink)

INNOVATION

Do something really unique! Right now the "metaverse" is something that is slowly boiling behind the scenes and in a few years it will be mainstream.

If MicroVolts was able to tap into Web3 and utilize NFT's, it would be FUCKING HUGE.

Right now, a bunch of studios are making their own "metaverses" and are working HARD to attract a player base. MV already has that player base and all it would need to do is to utilize Web3.

TRANSPARENCY

Consistently share and update the current stage of development.

Create an ABOUT US page so that everybody can see who's working behind the scenes. If some of the team doesn't want to DOX themselves, that's fine, but at least make a Twitter page for each member involved so people can interact with the team. 

 

I would personally be honored to work with the team to make changes and release an amazing game, but unfortunately I doubt anybody from the team will either see or acknowledge this post at all. It kind of seems like they team are aware of this but are trying to revive the dead dog that is MicroVolts in hopes of bringing back the old days.

I know my criticism seems harsh but I wouldn't be saying it if I didn't think there's still a chance for MV to make a comeback.

Edited December 18, 2022 by iHawks
Conext

[OGSapphire 308]

Ok soooo all im going to say is that the mvr team has a small team & budget and please STOP BRINGING NFT'S INTO THIS .

[iHawks 3]

3 minutes ago, OGSapphire said:

Ok soooo all im going to say is that the mvr team has a small team & budget and please STOP BRINGING NFT'S INTO THIS .

I believe this and more can be achieved with a smaller team and a smaller budget. Hence the reference to indie mobile games. It isn't a matter of size and budget but rather where that budget is spent and how the team is managed.

I truly believe that the changes the current team has spent countless months working on could be knocked out in a few hours. 

As for NFT's, I'm not going to try to sell you on NFT's since clearly you're clearly not interested, but I can guarantee you that literally everything you pay for in the future is going to be an NFT. Whether it's a skin in a video game, a house or a snickers bar. Why? Because it makes sense. Of course at that point we won't refer to them as NFT's. At that point it's just a snickers bar.

 

My point is that you can either adapt now and gain from it or bicker about it until you don't have a choice.

[desafinado56 358]

7 hours ago, iHawks said:

I believe this and more can be achieved with a smaller team and a smaller budget. Hence the reference to indie mobile games. It isn't a matter of size and budget but rather where that budget is spent and how the team is managed.

I truly believe that the changes the current team has spent countless months working on could be knocked out in a few hours. 

As for NFT's, I'm not going to try to sell you on NFT's since clearly you're clearly not interested, but I can guarantee you that literally everything you pay for in the future is going to be an NFT. Whether it's a skin in a video game, a house or a snickers bar. Why? Because it makes sense. Of course at that point we won't refer to them as NFT's. At that point it's just a snickers bar.

 

My point is that you can either adapt now and gain from it or bicker about it until you don't have a choice.

No its really not going in that direction at all, just look at the backlash nfts have constantly been getting, people will not accept this and thats a good thing.

[Volt 485]

iHawks I know you're an OG and all but man, bringing NFTs and the metaverse stuff into this kinda kills your credibility. NTFs are a flop, nobody cares about the metaverse besides people trying to make a quick buck, look at Facebook bro. What they could do though is integrate trading and "owning" an item in Steam's inventory database, so you could "own" an item, and also do with you'd like with it, like trading it. This game doesn't need to look great either, though some textures could use some work, I'm not sure if this engine is capable of making the game look "modern", and that's okay. Look at Terraria, it's one of the most successful games of all time, it's 2-D, and uses pixel art. Stylized games can be just as successful as highly detailed and even "realistic" looking games.

Communication is key though, I will admit that. They need to continue to communicate, as I believe the game could have been released this month, so many beta phases wouldn't have been necessary if they would've structured their communication and development cycle a bit better.

[Tanooki 445]

fuck NFTs

[miwafoxl 23]

11 hours ago, iHawks said:

The game is built on an engine called "Gamebryo". Yeah I hadn't heard of it either until just now. For context, go look at their website. I'm no developer so I don't really know jack about shit, but from the looks of it, it's no Unreal Engine 5.

I actually decompiled the game's assets, and indeed the game uses Gamebyro engine.

Although a visual upgrade would be fun, it would require MasangSoft to rebuild the game entirely from scratch. This takes LOT of time and seeing that they are right off the bat releasing Open Betas, the dream of the entire game being built from scratch is far from being real.

Personally, I wouldn't see this as a priority because the game runs like a butter in any system, with the addition of looking super unique compared to all those dog's water Unreal Engine games (not generalizing, but they all look the god damn same game and they can't even run properly). But I get that your point is to appeal to newer generation, but man I fear this so much. The game kinda has a pleasant vibe and responsiveness that are very unlikely to be perfectly matched with the original one.  Only really caring developers would handle this situation, which we don't have a good answer to.

Concluding, they had a lot of time to do this already, but MasangSoft haven't did it and they don't seem particularly attracted to rebuilding the game completely, neither are the community, just the ones that want the game to look like Fortnite at some point. Either way, I wanna know how it would go.

Edited December 19, 2022 by miwafoxl
you haven't seen anything

[miwafoxl 23]

My mistake, correction:  Closed Betas

10 minutes ago, miwafoxl said:

releasing Open Betas

I think posting this is illegal, but I just wanna share this screenshot proving that is indeed Gamebyro

[Nipyoo 7]

A lot of people in this community have a misconception about Masangsoft. Masangsoft primarily purchases online games to maintain them, not to greatly develop them. They basically prevent them from dying and run them as a legacy service. It was also stated multiple times by Leo that they want to use a self-sustaining concept which provides them with income even without having to continuously add new content.

Also the previous developer NQ Games was backed by a big telecommunication company which provided them tons of sweet $$$ to develop MV. I highly doubt that it was ever profitable for them. In Korea, the game is mocked as Kimchi Fortress 2 and was a huge flop. The only reason why it survived in Europe is because it could run on every potato machine and had a hand full of players from every country creating a somewhat stable playerbase.

Let's not trick ourselves into believing that MV will become some sort of Fortnite 2.0 or will become popular in any other way.

[Nipyoo 7]

4 hours ago, miwafoxl said:

I actually decompiled the game's assets, and indeed the game uses Gamebyro engine.

Although a visual upgrade would be fun, it would require MasangSoft to rebuild the game entirely from scratch. This takes LOT of time and seeing that they are right off the bat releasing Open Betas, the dream of the entire game being built from scratch is far from being real.

Personally, I wouldn't see this as a priority because the game runs like a butter in any system, with the addition of looking super unique compared to all those dog's water Unreal Engine games (not generalizing, but they all look the god damn same game and they can't even run properly). But I get that your point is to appeal to newer generation, but man I fear this so much. The game kinda has a pleasant vibe and responsiveness that are very unlikely to be perfectly matched with the original one.  Only really caring developers would handle this situation, which we don't have a good answer to.

Concluding, they had a lot of time to do this already, but MasangSoft haven't did it and they don't seem particularly attracted to rebuilding the game completely, neither are the community, just the ones that want the game to look like Fortnite at some point. Either way, I wanna know how it would go.

The main reason why MV looks "good" or "unique" is because everything that you can see in the game is fake. The entire lightning is pre-calculated, baked to files and simply drawn over the map textures. Therefore you can't really compare it to Unreal Engine games as MV is full of illusions. Heck, you can't even have moving objects in MV because the lightning would mismatch with the rest of the map.

 

Imagine wanting to go to the beach but instead of actually going, you just print a picture of a beach and stick it to your wall. Yeah, that's MicroVolts for you.

[Ducks_are_Epic 33]

Minecraft actually got multiple graphical and texture updates

[TipicoDev 63]

10 hours ago, miwafoxl said:

I think posting this is illegal, but I just wanna share this screenshot proving that is indeed Gamebyro

You're under arrest.

[khalo0od100 98]

Honestly, im so tired of posts like this 🙂
You really think they are going to completely switch the graphics now? Like, if you truly believe that its just sad at this point, and you basically have 0 knowledge oh how things work. They do not have the funds, nor the time to this. This would have been possible if it was another company or if they actually wanted to do this in all these years. Bringing up this subject is purely useless.

And regarding the NFTS, no. Just no. 

People need to realize that this is not a game for everyone, lower ur expectations. If you want nfts and dumb stuff like that , you should search for other games.

Sorry for the harsh response but this is the reality.

[miwafoxl 23]

9 hours ago, Nipyoo said:

The main reason why MV looks "good" or "unique" is because everything that you can see in the game is fake. The entire lightning is pre-calculated, baked to files and simply drawn over the map textures. Therefore you can't really compare it to Unreal Engine games as MV is full of illusions. Heck, you can't even have moving objects in MV because the lightning would mismatch with the rest of the map.

Yeah I'm entirely aware of this technique, was all over the place in older games because it was the least demanding in hardware. It's quite literally called "baked textures" or "baked lighting" and yeah everything you said about moving objects is a thing that can't happen because of the technique limitation.

 

[miwafoxl 23]

7 hours ago, Ducks_are_Epic said:

Minecraft actually got multiple graphical and texture updates

I mean textures updates would be fine to me, especially if it's "remastering" the older textures, giving a better definition (higher resolutions) and that's a thing that can actually be done with the current circumstances, but my man is talking about porting the game to Unreal Engine 5 which basically means redoing the entire thing, which is ... unrealistic (?)

Certainly can be done, but would require a lot of time to MasangSoft to work and also could be a shoot in the foot if the game is unable to run properly due to bad optimizations giving that the game would be calculating lighting in real-time and probably would receive higher-detailed models. Still quite unrealistic in my perspective ...

Edited December 19, 2022 by miwafoxl

[miwafoxl 23]

4 hours ago, TipicoDev said:

You're under arrest.

Bad Kitty...

 

9 hours ago, Nipyoo said:

A lot of people in this community have a misconception about Masangsoft. Masangsoft primarily purchases online games to maintain them, not to greatly develop them. They basically prevent them from dying and run them as a legacy service. It was also stated multiple times by Leo that they want to use a self-sustaining concept which provides them with income even without having to continuously add new content.

Also the previous developer NQ Games was backed by a big telecommunication company which provided them tons of sweet $$$ to develop MV. I highly doubt that it was ever profitable for them. In Korea, the game is mocked as Kimchi Fortress 2 and was a huge flop. The only reason why it survived in Europe is because it could run on every potato machine and had a hand full of players from every country creating a somewhat stable playerbase.

Let's not trick ourselves into believing that MV will become some sort of Fortnite 2.0 or will become popular in any other way.

It's kinda sad in a certain way because the game will apparently not evolve even though is being re-released after 10 years, the expectations is that the game would be at least modernized in the aspects it need (not talking about graphics), and clearly has in some, like the removal of P2W components.  I guess it will be just a "original version" of ToyHereos without P2W.

Edited December 19, 2022 by miwafoxl
my cat is pretty cute

[iHawks 3]

23 hours ago, desafinado56 said:

No its really not going in that direction at all, just look at the backlash nfts have constantly been getting, people will not accept this and thats a good thing.

The first car ever had a top speed of around 20km/h. It was considered such a safety hazard that it required 4 people to carry lights and ring bells around it at all times so that nobody would "get run over" because of it's incredible speed. Safe to say, the majority of people were against the idea of the car since a horse did the job just fine.

I believe the same with NFT's and yes, right now it's kind of a shitty 20km/h car that isn't very impressive but the potential it has in society is completely different from anything we've seen before.

All I'm saying is that you can choose which side of the table you decide to sit at.

[iHawks 3]

21 hours ago, Volt said:

What they could do though is integrate trading and "owning" an item in Steam's inventory database, so you could "own" an item, and also do with you'd like with it, like trading it.

My guy you literally just described an NFT.

[desafinado56 358]

2 hours ago, iHawks said:

My guy you literally just described an NFT.

Except that steam items arent one of kind pieces with overinflated prices.
He meant the way you already own items in your steam backpack.

[desafinado56 358]

2 hours ago, iHawks said:

The first car ever had a top speed of around 20km/h. It was considered such a safety hazard that it required 4 people to carry lights and ring bells around it at all times so that nobody would "get run over" because of it's incredible speed. Safe to say, the majority of people were against the idea of the car since a horse did the job just fine.

I believe the same with NFT's and yes, right now it's kind of a shitty 20km/h car that isn't very impressive but the potential it has in society is completely different from anything we've seen before.

All I'm saying is that you can choose which side of the table you decide to sit at.

Its very unfriendly to the enviroment, a cash grab, what could be the next financial bubble and its unregulated to such a ridiculous level people have been and will continue to be scammed to hell and back. This is not the future, its a problem. You also know for a fact that the moment the devs give the tinniest hints towards being interested in nfts that half the people here would leave and the other half would hold them at gun point, because again this is a problem.
Im not here to discuss this and wont be continuing this conversation further because this is supposed to be somewhere people to come to get news and talk about the game, i will however tell you that considering youre the only person here that supports nfts that you should maybe pay attention to everyone else around you here. 

[Volt 485]

6 hours ago, iHawks said:

My guy you literally just described an NFT.

Not really. Similar, but not the same. With an NFT, you can do whatever you'd like with it, and you yourself actually own it. With Steam, you don't actually own any of your items and Valve can do whatever they'd like with them whenever they want. Nobody calls a CSGO skin an NFT, you also tried to bring Web3 into this so I think we're all well aware of your headspace. You don't have to make NFTs some weird cringe debate, we understand what they are, but their future is approaching slowly, now isn't the time. People ruined the term "NFT" with their stupid monkey pictures and whatnot, though I understand their potential, it's not something that simply believing in is going to bring you success.

[OGSapphire 308]

Did you use gamebryo to use the map and if so what version did you use? im actually interested @ miwafoxl

[Knox95 11]

I stopped reading after I saw NFTs and Web3.

 

Hell no, stop trying to add Koopy juice into every goddamn game.

[iHawks 3]

18 hours ago, desafinado56 said:

Its very unfriendly to the enviroment, a cash grab, what could be the next financial bubble and its unregulated to such a ridiculous level people have been and will continue to be scammed to hell and back. This is not the future, its a problem. You also know for a fact that the moment the devs give the tinniest hints towards being interested in nfts that half the people here would leave and the other half would hold them at gun point, because again this is a problem.
Im not here to discuss this and wont be continuing this conversation further because this is supposed to be somewhere people to come to get news and talk about the game, i will however tell you that considering youre the only person here that supports nfts that you should maybe pay attention to everyone else around you here. 

You mean you can make MONEY with NFT's? You mea that thing this development team really needs? Let's be real here the game needs some form of income to stay running, much less thrive. The reason people spent money in the old MVS is because you literally didn't have any other choice unless you really enjoyed getting fucked in public lobbies. 

So I suppose the current plan is to make the game not pay-to-win, which I'm all for, but if then how is it supposed to generate income? Skins? And who is going to buy those skins? And what value does the skin have if you (i assume) can't trade them? 

 

I don't appreciate you shitting on my ideas. Whether you like it or not, I'm pointing out some pretty obvious flaws in the devs plan, which you might notice if you paid attention.

 

I think NFT's would be cool and that's my opinion, if you don't like it I respect your choice but then I'd expect you to have something better in mind.

Not that it matters because the devs aren't reading this and never will, and even if they did, they wouldn't take anything either I or you say into account.

 

I want MicroVolts to be a fun game that progressively gets better and better. I'm not gonna sit and play the same version of the game forever.

[Volt 485]

2 hours ago, iHawks said:

You mean you can make MONEY with NFT's? You mea that thing this development team really needs? Let's be real here the game needs some form of income to stay running, much less thrive. The reason people spent money in the old MVS is because you literally didn't have any other choice unless you really enjoyed getting fucked in public lobbies. 

So I suppose the current plan is to make the game not pay-to-win, which I'm all for, but if then how is it supposed to generate income? Skins? And who is going to buy those skins? And what value does the skin have if you (i assume) can't trade them? 

 

I don't appreciate you shitting on my ideas. Whether you like it or not, I'm pointing out some pretty obvious flaws in the devs plan, which you might notice if you paid attention.

 

I think NFT's would be cool and that's my opinion, if you don't like it I respect your choice but then I'd expect you to have something better in mind.

Not that it matters because the devs aren't reading this and never will, and even if they did, they wouldn't take anything either I or you say into account.

 

I want MicroVolts to be a fun game that progressively gets better and better. I'm not gonna sit and play the same version of the game forever.

Yes, skins? I believe that's the current plan, I mean look at Fortnite/Overwatch/Apex/Valorant, literally any of the biggest games right now, that's what they do, and it brings in ridiculous amounts of money. Now, with a valid monetization plan, you just have to make the game enjoyable for newer players, which is easier said than done, but is a necessary step to increasing the playerbase of this game. I don't enjoy getting to 29 kills in an FFA and waiting until someone gets close because the dude in second place is at 7 kills. It's unfair by nature, but I think when the ranked/league matches drop, it'll help solve this issue a bit. I would highly recommend this game have some sort of trading system, whether they allow trading via Steam, or tweaking the old trading system, it would make purchasing cosmetics a lot more appealing, as it's clear many people aren't too fond of it unless they get some sort of advantage over F2P accounts. I myself would buy as many cosmetics as I'd like, because I don't care about having some weird benefit, as long as cosmetics aren't ridiculously priced, I think it's totally fair to be cosmetic only.