Project Legion: Part Two

  
One of the drawbacks writing for a site with deadlines is that you often miss news between the time you file and the time you get published. Last week I wrote extensively on my thoughts about the Project Legion reveal and the subsequent Dust community fallout. A couple hours before Crossing Zebras published my article, High Drag released episode 33 of their podcast, featuring current CPM Chairman and former CSM7 representative, Hans Jagerblitzen. The majority of the discussion during their first segment was dedicated to Legion, and much of what I wrote last week ended up being confirmed by Hans. Untitled-8 I never intended to write a follow-up to my article last week, but the Project Legion segment revealed enough new information that I felt it warranted one. If you want to listen to only the Legion discussion, the segment runs from the 14:20 mark to 53:40. A lot of new information came out, including a lot of the behind the scenes work the CPM did prior to the Fanfest announcement. If you don’t want to listen to 40 minutes of nerds talking about shooters, here are the highlights in no particular order:
  • Features are coded into Dust that cannot be activated due to hardware constraints of the PS3.
  • The limited amount of information initially released was the by-product of the last two years of over-promising and not delivering.
  • CCP Rouge wanted to release the information months ago, but the decision to save it for Fanfest was made by higher-ups in the company.
  • CCP Rouge came to work for CCP because of the relationship CCP has with their player communities.
  • Discussion of Legion on the Dust forums is near-impossible due to the toxicity of the community; a lot of the anger expressed by Dust players is due to misinformation.
  • Dust IS NOT being abandoned, nor is the community. Dust will continue to be supported as time allows.
  • The work done on Project Legion is the exact same work that would need to be done to make a PS4 client. The process to port a PS4 client from the PC is relatively simple.
  • Sony won’t commit to a product until it’s developed further; Project Legion isn’t a product yet.
  • Project Legion is everything that the Dust community has been asking CCP for from the beginning.
  • No point in putting all their resources into a direct port since Dust is flawed in so many areas.
  • CCP’s single signon vision requires a PC client anyways; that does not mean that console versions won’t happen (cites EVE: Valkyrie as an example of a dual client product)
  • Direct comparison to the initial troubled release of Final Fantasy 14 and the subsequent re-release
The more I hear about CCP Rouge, the more I like him. For a long time one of the problems about Dust was a culture of self-deception that everything would be fine and it would end up being nothing short of the greatest gaming experience ever. Rouge, along with the rest of the Dust team, admitting that the realization of CCP’s vision for Dust is impossible under the current conditions was like a religious experience for many of us. When EVE was recovering from the Incarna fallout, one of the things that helped rebuild credibility with the community was the brutal honesty from CCP Unifex. Honesty will go a long way with the people that play your games, but it doesn’t get you as far as when a company is honest with itself. I’m not saying that the Dust vision can be saved like EVE was, but it never had a chance with the poor decisions made early on. Everything I’ve seen and heard about Legion has made me cautiously optimistic for its future, should it be greenlit. The decision to completely change course and essentially restart from scratch on PC is a bold decision that completely shocked a lot of people. While I was surprised myself, I’m more shocked by CCP very publically acknowledging the mistakes they made with Dust. ccplegion-640x360 As I mentioned last week, the Dust community has every right to be upset about the way the news got delivered. But after spending the last ten days on the Dust forums, it has become quite apparent the anger is now based on misinformation and a desire to be angry for the sake of being angry. I laughed when someone made a comparison to the famous Jita riots, as that was fueled by the poor decision making process that plagued EVE for several years. The Dust players are essentially rioting for the exact opposite reason; they’re mad that CCP is finally being honest with the community and their bold steps to right the wrongs of the past. No matter how things turn out, the poor decision in the revelation of the PC client has left a lot of people bitter. With all the misinformation out there, CCP has a long way to go to bring the Dust community back to the table. My concern is that the fallout will negatively impact the future development of Rouge’s vision for Legion, which is a travesty because this isn’t a mess he created. I guess I’ll finish this off with a message to the person or persons who made that awful reveal decision: #greenlightlegion
Tags: dust, greenlightlegion, hvac, legion, rouge

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HVAC Repairman

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