Two Years Later: An Insider's Perspective on the RA3 Debacle

[Clickbeetle]

Hello GTM, long time no see!  I am sure that everyone here who remembers me has noticed that I have not visited in a long time.  What you may not have noticed was that the time of my disappearance roughly coincided with the release of RA3.  This was not a coincidence, despite just using the word "coincided" in the previous sentence.  (English is weird.)

Some of you may remember that I got invited to the Encore development office to meet the RA3 development team and test an early version of the game, and afterward I was hyping it up, saying that it had a lot of potential to be everything we wished RA2 was.  Well, we all know how that turned out.  Suffice it to say that I was more than a little disillusioned with the whole thing.  I had a taste of double-acting burst motors, darn it!  Torque-reaction thwackbots that actually work!  And don't forget NO 7-COMPONENT CHAIN LIMIT!  What do I do now, go back to RA2 like RA3 never happened?  It felt like a downgrade, despite RA3's obvious flaws.  Don't tease me with all these cool features and then snatch them away!

So, combined with work stuff, this is why I've been away from GTM.  It's a silly reason, and I knew that, so I've been intending to come back.  (Thank FOTEPX for finding my email and getting me to finally get off my sorry butt and do that.)  But first, as one of the only people to actually meet the RA3 dev team, and even having some involvement with development (I sent them bug reports and even suggested a few features that made their way into the final version) I thought I owed the community an explanation for the RA3 debacle.

In February of 2016 I got an email from somebody at Encore asking if I would like to visit the office and be part of the pre-alpha test group, since we were both in Minnesota.  (Conveniently, it turned out that I lived less than an hour's drive away from them.)  Obviously I jumped on that like Inertia Labs asking if I wanted to come over and take Bronco for a test drive.  So in March, Firebeetle and I drove down to the office and got shown around.  (For those wondering if Firebeetle is a real person, a fake double account, or if I'm just schizophrenic, if you manage to get hold of anybody who worked at Encore, they can confirm that there were two people there.  Or can they?)

Most of the meeting took place in a conference room, where they had RA3 running on a big projector, showing us what they had done so far and what they planned to do, and answering a few questions we had.  The lead designer of RA2 from Gabriel Interactive was there via Skype (or something), playing the game remotely and explaining the team's vision.  At this point only the bot lab was in a playable state (in fact you could argue that this is still the case), so we were only there about an hour or so, after which we got instructions for accessing the test version of the game from Steam so we could start working on bug reports.

Knowing that I was involved with the DSL mod, they also encouraged me to, and I quote, "poke around in the game files", which I thought was a bit odd at the time.  In retrospect, I think this may have been a last-ditch effort to crowdsource RA3 development because they knew they wouldn't finish it in time.  They may have been hoping that by giving modders access to the pre-alpha version, we could contribute components and possibly even code to speed up development.  This theory is backed up by the knowledge that they contacted HereticBlue and the UK Robot Wars mod team, but not Sage, who also lived in Minnesota but didn't have much modding experience.  (I suggested that they should get Sage on board, and they agreed, but didn't seem super enthusiastic about it.)  Unfortunately for them, it took me something like five years to finish DSL.  There was no way I was going to be able to finish RA3 for them in one month.  Had I known that they were that desperate for help though, I might have tried a little harder to figure out how the game worked.  I still regret not making more of an effort at modding RA3 when I had the support of the dev team.

Anyway, the thing I took away from that meeting at the time was that the Encore team genuinely wanted to make a great game.  These were not men in fancy suits just trying to turn a quick profit by capitalizing off the recent popularity of the Battlebots and Robot Wars reboots.  They were never anything but friendly, enthusiastic, and excited to give the RA2 community what it wanted.  That enthusiasm rubbed off on me, and I came away optimistic for the game's future.  This is perhaps because I didn't see their progress before that point, and had no idea how quickly (or slowly) they were working.  I thought one or two months would be enough time to at least get the game in a playable state, and if it was successful (which I thought there was a good chance of), they could continue working on updates.

When the release date drew near and it became clear to me that the game would not be finished in time, I tried to warn the dev team and pleaded for them to delay the release date.  I think this may have been what prompted them to release the game as "early access" rather than a final version, as they originally planned.  But as we all know, it was still a disaster.  They should have delayed any sort of release, and I kind of think they wanted to, but they were not able.

Now, I don't know anything of what was going on behind the scenes or who the dev team's boss was.  But it seems that although the team I met was totally cool and not just in it for money, ultimately money was their downfall (as in, they ran out of it).  Whether they had a grant for X dollars and once it was gone it was gone, with nothing they could do about it, or whether there was some shadowy executive behind the scenes who was just interested in a quick cash grab, I don't know.  But I am convinced that the RA3 debacle was not their fault.  They did the best with what they had, and I am still convinced that if you got this same team together and funded them for another year, they would produce a quality game.  It's a crying shame that they didn't get that chance.

So that's my story.  I thought a rare eyewitness account would provide some much-needed context and perhaps help clear the names of Gabriel and Encore a little bit.  RA3 is a barely-playable mess, true, but it had potential to be great and the dev team doesn't deserve any hate.

And now... finally back to RA2, I guess?

[Dreamcast]

Sorry, it's not April, we have to take this 100% seriously now.

[FOTEPX]

Thank FOTEPX for finding my email and getting me to finally get off my sorry butt and do that.

 

And now... finally back to RA2, I guess?

Finally, yeah! The man who designed it all actually being her to be able to give his word on the balance changes! Alrighty.

So, now that you're back, Click, I've gotta hit you with the hardball - sorry, it's gotta be done - Should Mr. AS' DSL 2.2 Weapon Rebalance patch be officially implemented? It's an issue that the community is split down the middle on, and I wouldn't be lying if I said that part of the reason I reached out to you is to settle it, once and for all. Of course, you're more than welcome to implement these changes yourself, or make up your ways to rebalance, but I don't think there's a question on if there's an issue or not; there is. Now that you're back... Man, I'm happy, no doubt, welcome ****ing back, brother. But we got work to do, so let's get crackin' ey? 

[Naryar]

A legend walks back those halls ! Again !

[Clickbeetle]

Should Mr. AS' DSL 2.2 Weapon Rebalance patch be officially implemented?

I'm going to abstain on that until I get a chance to read more feedback from players, check out a few recent showcases, and of course test out the weapon rebalance patch for myself.  But I will have an answer... next week maybe?  Better make it two.  I don't want to rush this.

[FOTEPX]

Should Mr. AS' DSL 2.2 Weapon Rebalance patch be officially implemented?

I'm going to abstain on that until I get a chance to read more feedback from players, check out a few recent showcases, and of course test out the weapon rebalance patch for myself.  But I will have an answer... next week maybe?  Better make it two.  I don't want to rush this.

Ooh... I like the sounds of that.

On a personal, more ego-fueled note, do you like what I did with DSL 2.2 CE? 

[Thyrus]

while you're there you can also check out DSC's colorpacks to decide if they can be made official.
WB CB<3

[8bean]

Welcome back Click! It's sad to hear that such a well meaning team had such an unfortunate downfall. However, it's good to finally hear the whole story.

[Mystic2000]

well at least we now know they were legit devs and not cash-grabbing asshats

[Billy5545]

Welcome back, Clickbeetle. While I'm one of the new members who registered in the period of your absence (Aside from Bildschirm, moziet, Superbot13, and more), it is great to see a legend comd back. Perhaps even help other players with DSL-S showcase or try DSL-S RL.

Anyway, on the topic, after reading that, it's very sad that despite if you and their efforts, the game is released in a buggy state and permanently tarnished, being turned to a joke. Especially with the new features you mentioned, and the ability to put the components first before making the chassis

[Sage]

I eventually did get alpha access to RA3. Did a lot of playtesting and sent a lot of bug reports and feedback for the team (to no avail, unfortunately). Woulda been fun to join you guys at the headquarters though!

[kix]

Hey Click! You most certainly dont remember me as im a little ****boi.
Reading this, i actually feel sorry for the team that tried to make a genuinely great game. As you said. Its back to RA2, but even that has changed since 2016. Noticeable ones are coloured extenders and plates (which im sure you heared bout it), and ability to import custom chassis models in ra2. About ra3. I feel like that RA3 could be improved with the help of community, as there are certainly people that have Unity skills.

[Asbestosstar]

Sup click, I don't think we ever met, I was wondering where you were and about the dsl mod. I hope to work with you in the future as I have a lot of cool ideas. Unfortunately the robot arena site recently got parked. I hope to see you some time. Happy your back and I heard the hype before.

[Dark-Al]

That's a very interesting story of what went on within the development of RA3 and your involvement in the project itself. Yes, I do feel you with the problems that you faced during your time testing and making a few components for the project. Then finding out about the results of the end project being an absolute mess. As a student currently doing a computer games design degree, I have faced some of these problems before when I did a few group work base projects when my group would have a good idea, but then communication became limited, someone decided not to do anything and I didn't get to see what other's did in terms of work. So in the end, the project was a big disappointment. It's a hard to say this since I'm a student who can afford to make mistakes and group work can be an absolute pain in the first year, but even then these problems can occur throughout game development all the time, so this is more the case on how to try to avoid the problems for next time.

Apart from all of that, it's good to see an old face returning to the forums again!

[Jonzu95]

Happy to see you back, Click.

[superbot13]

Can we sue them

[freeziez]

i missed you

[Meganerdbomb]

Some of us did notice that's when you left loll. Also, we have no RO7 and unlimited chassis points in RA2 now, so that's a thing.

[Dadddjent]

oh sh**e it the man, the myth, the legend...the bug

[pokebro14]

Good to see you back click