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Backwards Compatibility: A Somewhat Cynical Retrospective

Archive: 80 posts

In retrospect, how do we feel the nature of the backwards compatibility has affected us, as a community and as customers. Has it brought us significant benefit? Do we feel that it has proved necessary? In what way might the game have been enhanced by its ommission?

Feel free to not read through my waffly opinions (that follow) straight away and and have a think about your own - I'm genuinely interested in how everyone feels about this, so I'd rather not influence you in any way.

-----------------------------------

Flashback to 1 year ago, and as my memory serves, there were a few discussions around here about the potential for an LBP sequel. These were, at the time, completely speculative - none of us were aware of the announcement that would be coming. Amongst the talk of "there doesn't need to be an LBP2 - this platform could just keep expanding" (an argument that still holds true today) and various speculations about what features might be included in such a thing, if it were to occur, there was a recurring question: "What will happen to our babies?". For many people who had spent thousands of hours creating their masterpieces, the concept that a sequel would effectively make their efforts redundant, force their creations into the dark recesses of a forgotten server that would most likely be shut down soon after. Indeed, a painful thought for people that have poured so much love and devotion into this game / community / hobby / way of life / whatever.

Then this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs0T5l24JL0) happened. The interwebs exploded along with many a head (I assume, somehow I missed it for several days :/) and in the picking apart of that video, where we all tried to second guess exactly what the hell this new wonderness this was, one phrase - the closing phrase of the announcement - had some special significance:

Oh, and those 2 million existing levels? Still there, and looking better than ever.

To wit: The "sequel" would be backwards compatible with its predecessor.

This never happened.

-------------------------------

Sure, all the tools are there and most of them work in almost exactly the same way as they used to, and you can certainly load up the levels and run them. Which probably ticks the "backwards compatibility" box for marketing purposes. But the reality for the community is somewhat different. Over the thousands of hours that a single creator creator might have spent, a lot of that time would have been spent on designing tuning and perfecting systems within our creations. This tuning would be based upon a mixture of trial and error and / or an intimate knowledge of how the engine works. The end result of this is that the "almost exactly the same" is not the same. Certain things about the physics have changed, several of the tools have modified some of the subtleties of how they work and the overall result is that if your creation working properly happens to rely on any one of those numerous things that have changed, you're out of luck.

Then there is the visual aspect of backwards compatibility. If your level had any amount of attention to detail invested in the visuals, either artistically or from a subtle gameplay / communication viewpoint, then the chances are you could just wave goodbye to all of that. I'm not the most artistic of people, but I still take care in how things look, and the updates kill that. I can't imagine what it might have been like for some of the people who are artistic creators foremost...

When the beta hit, all of this started to become quite apparent to the masses, and the general feeling in the community about BC seemed to shift from one of relief to horror... Our babies hadn't been saved, they'd been mutilated, ruined and thrown back at us a broken shadow of their former self.

Most people came to terms with this issue pretty quickly, the enhancements to the new toolset were good enough to let us forgive and we started looking forward to the new possibilities and all the bonuses that were coming. Some people ported their levels over, others have simply blocked them from the LBP2 servers (heh, the irony that I was once afraid my baby would be condemned to a lonely existence on a neglected server and in the end it's become me who put it there). So maybe there isn't really any problem with all this? If the new game is awesome, then does it really matter that the BC didn't work if we have come to terms with it anyway?

To me, yes, because although the actual lack of real backwards compatibility is a relatively moot point, I can't help but wonder what could have been, if the ultimately futile attempts at backwards compatibility hadn't have been giving such a massive priority... If that closing phrase in the announcement had never been pushed to us.

For starters we could have ditched some of the bugs that are still knocking around from the original game. Backwards compatibility has always been something of a curse to this game - the fact that it is so heavily dependent of User-Generated-Content and an interpretation of that content at run-time means that any updates to the game should not be such that they would break an already existing levels. LBP has many bugs that can't be fixed for this very reason. Forcing a continuation of this has meant we still have those bugs (re-evaluation of certain components when players join mid-level? Oh the joy!).

Then there are the current bugs in the game, the new ones that have come with new tools. Sure I've been know to say that it's fair enough for MM to not have fixed them yet, these things take time, but that time could have been gained prior to release if backwards compatibility hadn't have been there. The simple fact that backwards compatibility required (I assume) an inordinate amount of time to actual design around, implement around and test (oh my god the testing must have been a nightmare - it was bad enough for those of us in the beta) makes me feel sad that it was such a high priority.

We could also have had more tools and some of the tools that have absolutely glaring ommisions might have been noticed earlier and we could have got some more of those into the game at release - remember how much benefit can be gleaned out of a single extra tweak in a single tool (see angle sensors and the positional setting on the sequencer). Maybe we could have had indestructible sackbots, or changing of sackbots' costumes via a simple switch, maybe couple of variants on hologram that aren't so visually limited, a less cack-handed implementation of independent per-player cameras, sackbots that can swim, data transfer between levels or even persistently across play sessions

Instead of any of those we got a marketing hook, whose sole purpose turned out to be a method to condition us, as customers, into feeling better about handing over our money for a sequel that we knew was never really needed...

---------------------------

Note: all of the sweeping generalisations about how the community's viewpoints changed over the months prior to release are pretty just my perception of general trends around here. They don't exactly match up with what I felt at any particular time and I'm sure other people had their own views and / or perceptions. Don't feel that I've attempted to define anyone else's view or anything like that, as I said, I'm interested to see how the rest of the community feels about this stuff.

Also, in preparing this post I rewatched the announcement video again for the first time in months. A lot of stuff is missing from it now and much of it looks pretty unpolished, but by god it gave me tingles

Edit: It's been pointed out to me that I made no mention of DLC / LBP1 create mode assets transferring over. TBH, I kinda considered that transfer of assets would be, as far as possible, an absolute certainty, even with a complete engine change and no compatibility for levels.

2011-03-18 21:49:00

Author:
rtm223

Posts: 6497

Long as we got to keep are DLC from LBP1 to LBP2 (not counting levels)
i could have lived without the rest of backwards compatibility.
i much more want a bug-less game then a backwards compatible 1 fulled to the top with bugs~

Edit: And all are LBP1 Story-mode stuff like costumes and Decos ETC should
be backwards compatible too, but that's a given it would have been~

2011-03-18 22:02:00

Author:
Lord-Dreamerz

Posts: 4261

I do wish they had put in the emitter tweeking where you could edit the item in the emitters instead of having to just recapture. I do love the back-wards, but the fact most of my levels are broke sucks...but the fact I can do even more work on them is nice....the fact I have too is not.

So yes and no. Plus it was nice making my level for it in LBP 1 knowing I was going to finish it in LBP 2.

2011-03-18 22:06:00

Author:
celsus

Posts: 822

Long as we got to keep are DLC from LBP1 to LBP2 (not counting levels)

Yes, transfer of assets would have been plenty for me to be happy, TBH.

@celsus, of course, I completely forgot about those people that had ongoing creation projects in LBP1 that would have been DoA when LBP2 came out... I guess the community would actually have died quite a lot inside between the announcement and the release if this wasn't the case...

2011-03-18 22:11:00

Author:
rtm223

Posts: 6497

Interesting topic.

I was one of those before LBP2 announced that kept insisitng that a sequel would be a "terrible idea" and a "step backwards". We NEEDED to keep all our exisitng levels, and any new game would ruin that. LBP should be one game that evolves for years and years.

Happily I can admit I was completely wrong to say any of that, and now I don't even care about ANY LBP1 levels. Well, actually there are probably one or two really good or iconic ones that I'd want to replay at some point. But even some of my own levels such as Sacky Potter, which I deseperately didn't want to lose due to any sequel, I now don't care about it. The lighting is all ruined. It's there in LBP1 and that's where it belongs; LBP2 is all about moving forwards onto new and better things.

So I agree that maybe it would have been better to not bother with backwards compatibility at all. I kind of hope that for LBP3 they do a complete reset. Any new tools and features we'd get will make us forget about playing old LBP2 levels, and we'd still have the LBP2 disc to pop in if we ever wanted to play any.

And yeah, backwards compatible DLC is all I really care about, much more than any creations. I pretty much deleted (well, backed-up) all old LBP1 creations and started with a fresh moon and popit when I came into LBP2 anyway.

2011-03-18 22:14:00

Author:
Nuclearfish

Posts: 927

I was never interested in backwards compatibly. LBP2 is different enough that there's nothing useful in my old levels and I would rather have had MM focus on making a better LBP2 without backwards compatibly as a concern. As it is now I'd have to load LBP to see/play them properly anyway so they are all marked LBP1 Only. I don't want to fix them because it's too much thankless effort and would eat up my valuable level slots.

I know a lot of people feel differently and would definitely would like their LBP1 levels available in LBP2. To accommodate this I would have liked to see an import feature that would attempt to convert an LBP1 level to a LBP2 level. After verifying that the conversion was successful and tweaking what needed to be tweaked you could republish if you wanted to. Of course we'd need to raise the 20 level cap. If the person that created the LBP1 isn't playing LBP2 to re-publish and possiblly fix their LBP1 level...we don't really want it out there on the servers, right?

This does seem like one of those bad marketing decisions...like there's almost 4 million levels, 3 million of which are from LBP1 and most aren't good.

2011-03-18 22:15:00

Author:
fullofwin

Posts: 1214

Although it's not what I assume you had in mind when you made the thread, I do think that making DLC backwards compatible was certainly the right decision.

Yeah, as I commented with suzo's comment. TBH, it didn't get a mention in my OP because I guess I saw it as a "given", like there would be no question that materials, stickers, decos, costumes etc. got transferred over... I mean, what would LBP be without Dark Matter

Also, I'd like to say, I kept my copy of LBP1 for a couple of reasons, but possibly the main one is so that I can still play LBP1 levels using it. Under no circumstances would I play another creator's level in te engine it wasn't designed for - I wanna play it the way it was intended to be played

I always (since the create jam - I was concerned about this issue as far back as that) proposed that LBP2 might have some kind of alternate mode for playing LBP1 levels. I appreciate that the extra codebase would be complex, but I honestly can't see it being as difficult to pull off as having a one-size-fits-all compatibility... Who knows...

2011-03-18 22:18:00

Author:
rtm223

Posts: 6497

Yes, transfer of assets would have been plenty for me to be happy, TBH.

Ah yes almost forgot about the non DLC assets like LBP1-Story-mode costumes, Decos, ETC, when posting,
Story-mode stuff along with DLC transfer of assets would have been the best way to go if you ask me.
yeah true, it was pretty much a given they at least do that much.

Sad to see old levels go, but it's just not worth the trouble, plus most people remade 100%
any levels they were making on LBP1 and planing to complete
on LBP2 when they got LBP2 from what I've seen~ *mew

Also Your right when you said, it been nice to see them had spend the time on
other things like more new power ups, ETC.

2011-03-18 22:25:00

Author:
Lord-Dreamerz

Posts: 4261

I guess I saw it as a "given", like there would be no question that materials, stickers, decos, costumes etc. got transferred over... I mean, what would LBP be without Dark Matter

It would be LBP2 with Light Matter.

2011-03-18 22:26:00

Author:
Nuclearfish

Posts: 927

It's a really hard one actually, I can see why Mm made the decision to make it backwards compatible. When LBP2 was first leaked all that time ago a lot of people were worried that their work would be lost. Heck, I even remember many people saying if it wasn't backwards compatible they wouldn't buy it. Though, this was before we knew anything about LBP2, so they most likely would have been blown away by new features and bought it anyway. But even so, I think LBP2 would have lost a lot of sales down to people not wanting to lose their creations, and the people who bought LBP2 anyway I imagine wouldn't be happy at all.

But on the other hand, I personally never cared for backwards compatibility anyway. Probably because I hadn't made anything of much interest in LBP1, so I would of happily started again without my LBP1 stuff. So long as we could keep anything unlocked from LBP1 and DLC (materials, stickers, decorations, objects etc.) which wouldn't take them nearly as much time to transfer over.

So yep, my overall opinion, Mm should have just scrapped the LBP1 levels and spent more time in new features and fixing things that are now too late to fix.

Also, I just want to point out, there are almost twice as much levels as there were when that trailer was made.

2011-03-18 22:46:00

Author:
Doopz

Posts: 5592

I think the impact on the community is pretty big, because personally I'd hoped I could still enjoy all the old levels without my LBP2 disc ever leaving the drive. Now it feels like a lot of great content is either locked away or hidden, so we've lost a lot of history in this transition.

Visual problems aside, I think that mm started off with the good intentions of keeping a high level of compatibility, but the reality is that what we wound up with is basically a porting tool to bring our assets forward into the new game environment. I think that to ensure true backwards compatibility, they'd need to merge some of the new changes back into a patch for the first game, or add modes for the changed tools to behave as the did in the different games....assuming that would even work.

At this point, you either have to fix broken mechanics in and republish as a new 2-only level, or make it invisible to the second game which effectively means it'll have a really low chance of being played.In a perfect world, a level that doesn't use any of the assets from the second game could be read or written in either game, but I think the ship has sailed on that front.

2011-03-18 22:55:00

Author:
Chazprime

Posts: 587

But even so, I think LBP2 would have lost a lot of sales down to people not wanting to lose their creations

I don't think so. Anyone that bothered about their creations would surely love the game enough to buy the sequel anyway. You could argue they wouldn't have gained extra sales, because I'm sure the "2 million levels!" thing was a big selling point for many people.

2011-03-18 22:56:00

Author:
Nuclearfish

Posts: 927

I believe MM settled on a LOT of things just to keep the BC.
(for example they needed a completely new rating system, when they could have just added a skip rating button imo)

I was also one of those people who thought LBP2 was not needed as LBP1 still had heaps of life left, and could be extended by DLC.
When I heard LBP2 was coming, I also thought level BC was important.
I was very wrong.

LBP2's tools are leaps and bounds above LBP1.
There is no way you would go back.

LBP2 would definitely have benefited from having a blank slate.
There are a ton of issues that are just troublesome to deal with.

The posts above summed BC up well:
Good intentions, but not worth it in the long run.

As long as we got to keep the DLC we paid for, BC can go jump off a cliff.
Like fumetsusozo said, I would also prefer a bugless LBP2 than a bugfull BC LBP.

2011-03-18 23:19:00

Author:
midnight_heist

Posts: 2513

I was one of those before LBP2 announced that kept insisitng that a sequel would be a "terrible idea" and a "step backwards". We NEEDED to keep all our exisitng levels, and any new game would ruin that. LBP should be one game that evolves for years and years.

Happily I can admit I was completely wrong to say any of that, and now I don't even care about ANY LBP1 levels. Well, actually there are probably one or two really good or iconic ones that I'd want to replay at some point.

I was exactly the same. When speculation about LBP2 started, I was vocal in my opinion that Mm would never be stupid enough to make it. It was announced shortly after

As for BC, I was very worried about it up through the beta. Most of the bugs I reported were BC bugs and they were pretty much all sorted out by release time: my LBP levels seem to work find in LBP2. But when I discovered that you could tag them as LBP only, I did so without a second thought, because, frankly they're just not that good, especially compared to what they could be with LBP2's tools and I was embarrassed by them.

That said, I'm actually pretty happy with how things have turned out. Yes there are plenty of bugs that I could certainly live without, but, aside from the local space game camera issue, none that I find particularly crippling to anything I want to do. Some of the features that Rtm listed are certainly mouth-watering (especially better per-player cameras--why oh why did Mm make the decision that it could only be done in versus mode?!), but there's nothing that says they would have made it into the game with or without bc. My only regret is that some of my favorite LBP levels (including Subterranean Setbacks--I was dying to see how that looked with the new engine) have been set to LBP only by their creators and it's unlikely I'll ever fire up LBP again just to play a couple of community levels.

There's the other matter that I'm a strong proponent of exploiting glitches to gain more creative options. Theck/thack materials, thin gas (yes there are still applications where it works better than holo), invisible material, "dead" material (killed by creature brain), non-physics material (killed by corner editing dark matter), and the compression tool are all things I use all the time, which likely wouldn't have made it if it weren't for backwards compatibility. So yeah, I'm thrilled with how things turned out. In my mind Mm is a near perfect model of how a good dev treats its customers.

2011-03-18 23:53:00

Author:
Sehven

Posts: 2188

When I first read about lbp2 being BC, my first thought was. Why?? I could never wrap my head around why people couldn't let go of the first game, and those levels. In the world of video games they always make a sequel. It's what they do. I always knew MM would. I guess I figured it was just wasted effort making it BC. Now that I've played the levels, I wish they wouldn't have wasted the effort, because they definitely don't look better than ever.

Just give me my Items, and dlc

2011-03-19 00:56:00

Author:
smasher

Posts: 641

A bit overdramatic about how they "botched" backwards compatibility. I have 1 level that screwed up - but it doesn't surprise me because when I simply open it up in LBP1 and save it it no longer works completely (it's very much thermo-hacked and unstable). In LBP2 it is a little dark, but playable until about halfway through (which incidentally is where it broke in LBP1 when I re-saved it).

Also I see where you are coming from with the suggestions of what they could have done instead, but I can't help thinking that if Mm HAD scrapped backwards compatibility, and instead implemented those few extra features (as useful as they are), people would have been saying "how hard could it have been to get BC? why do we need all of these features when we could have had BC?" - and there would STILL have been bugs, because there are ALWAYS bugs in any software. You may also have ended up with features you didn't need at all, whereas now Mm can listen to what the community wants. I think Mm have proven their ability to support the community, so we know that improvements are coming, and that they will be community-driven.

2011-03-19 01:24:00

Author:
thor

Posts: 388

Excellent topic and to put it simply RTM, it's like you were reading my mind when you posted that opening post.

Anyways, marketing is important and as for quite any Backward Compatibility promise, it's mostly just to make people feel better about buying the next product.

The only thing I can't agree with though is that a business mind not want to tell such exagerrated liners like the level looking ton better and such. Just tell people BC is there, and this especially when you totally know it will not be perfect. As I thought it would, the BC right now is quite horrible and a large majority of levels that were pushing the envellope or carefully made in LBP1 are messed up in LBP2. Even my levels are quite simple and most are messed up + some became completely unplayable!!

2011-03-19 01:49:00

Author:
RangerZero

Posts: 3901

I feel that backwards compatibility shouldn't be a focus for things in general. True backwards compatibility is such a hassle to implement. LBP2's logic system is written almost entirely from scratch. That means that LBP1 is pretty much emulated to the best the LBP2 engine can guess. It's a doomed path regardless.

To be honest, I'd be very happy if Backwards Compatibility wasn't a focus in the slightest. I flagged every single one of my LBP1 levels to be LBP1-only. They only work well in it and honestly, if you want to play them, you likely have LBP1 anyway. The only thing that matters to me is being able to keep purchased and collected materials, costumes, etc. I think that is the only BC that matters.

I'd be very interesting to see what LBP2 might turn into if it didn't have to fit in the standards of LBP1

2011-03-19 05:07:00

Author:
Foofles

Posts: 2278

Well More logic survival game got lightning not as original and much dimmer and and in Caltron it reduces 2 lifes instead of one (faster logic?). So it's not so bad on my side

Well this is what happens when people do something that developer can't predict, lot of levels runs on non-theoretical uses

2011-03-19 05:22:00

Author:
Shadowriver

Posts: 3991

Well, I personally try to avoid LBP1 levels, oddly enough. Even though many of these levels don't necessarily have to to suck because honestly, just about a year ago these levels were the bees knees, and honestly, some of them still are. But here's the thing; I disagree with your opinion about LBP2 not being needed. This was worth the 80 bucks I paid for the CE. Now comes the point where the question is - "Could these things have been done in LBP1's engine?". Now, of course, there are two possible answers, but I'm going to go for the 'No' answer, because given the sheer amount of things that were changed, it's far more likely than 'yes'.

So, 'no, these things wouldn't have been possible in LBP1'. It's here where my argument is wrapped up nicely with a bow. Going back to those first few sentences - The reason I'm so unwilling to play those LBP1 levels is because, yes, LBP2 was necessary- you can no longer recognize it as LBP1. It's like cell phones. You guys remember flip phones? Those things were the coolest in their day. Revolutionary, cool, exciting. But then came the smart phones. And whatever we thought about flip phones back then, they seem tacky now. You may ask 'We're talking about the BC here, Astro, get back on track!'. Well, yes, I was getting to that. Everything I've said so far has been said to eventually agree with you. No, BC was not necessary. You may have an awesome screensaver of your flip phone, but no matter how cool it is, you're not going to use it because it is tacky and ohmygod you can use your voice to play music with the smartphone. Of course, we were too blinded by fear and attachment that we didn't see this back then. Perhaps, if MM had spent more time advertising all the fantastic new features available, we wouldn't really have cared. But they were too busy working on BC. The tragedy is palpable.

I remember when rtm posted that massive list of features... and they weren't even in beta at the time, I think! I did not touch LBP after that. It was still a great game, of course. It's still one of the most advanced things on the market. But in the flash of an eye it became obsolete, and I don't mind that. But going back to it after hearing about these godly tools that LBP2 provided, sackbot NPCs, microchips, these things that would streamline it all... I couldn't. LBP2 was not optional at that point.

By the way, I never did mean to imply LBP1 is as tacky as a flip phone. That's just a good analogy.

2011-03-19 05:56:00

Author:
Astrosimi

Posts: 2046

Strangely, I now also avoid LBP1 levels.

As far as backwards compatability is concerned, it doesn't have too much of an effect on my platforming based levels. However, all my vehicle levels keep getting comments like "put a DCS / gyro etc in there". The point that people are missing is that these were built before LBP2 was announced and if arranged in order a timeline of the development of my understanding of making vehicles and control setups for LBP1.

Am I right in saying there is a means of blocking LBP1 levels on the LBP2 server? If so how?

2011-03-19 09:59:00

Author:
croissantbuncake

Posts: 572

I still say they should've just kept the good graphics that broke LBP1 stuff, people whine either way, better have them whine over a good looking game, than a iffy one. :/

2011-03-19 11:06:00

Author:
Silverleon

Posts: 6707

I find it ironic that everybody has their LBP1 levels locked down in LBP2, meaning that BC was a moot point anyways.

It also annoys me that the beta once looked more visually stunning than the final product we are playing now, but a subsequent update weakened the overall look of the game so that the new lighting engine would be more compatible with LBP settings. It really wasn't rocket science for us to simply tweak the light settings in our old levels, and certainly in my case, once I had taken 10 minutes to do this my old levels looked better than ever, but since that update neither my LBP1 nor my LBP2 levels seem to look quite so good as they did in the early versions of the beta.

2011-03-19 13:23:00

Author:
Ungreth

Posts: 2130

I bet some lot of lock down level actually are playable and are not so different, but got locked because one light looks different, it seems that most level that suffer from new light engine is indoor levels and not all LBP1 are indoor ;] same a people consider there level 1 player only still they work fine with more players.

2011-03-19 13:51:00

Author:
Shadowriver

Posts: 3991

I think BC was a massive mistake and has caused more major problems than it was worth.

I agree with foofles above that the only things we really needed were the tools and collected materials for creating, and DLC.

As far as levels go, most levels from LBP1 simply don't work or look awful in LBP2 anyway. Most of mine are broken by the new hazard/lighting effects to the the point where it's actually impossible to play them to the finish. To be honest for eager, prolific creators there's no point having them even if they did work because every LBP1 level you have published on your LBP2 moon is one less LBP2 level you can have, so if you want 20 new levels you have to set all the LBP1 levels as only playable in LBP1 in any case, which rather makes it totally pointless having them there in the first place.

2011-03-19 13:59:00

Author:
mistervista

Posts: 2210

Edit because somehow it missed some of my post:

I never exploited any glitches in my levels. No "50+ layers", no "cow glitch", no thermo haxz, etc. My levels also vary with types of environment, if anyone's levels should work, they should be mine, right? Wrong. They are broken, far beyond just a couple of lights being off here and there.

Even my MM picked Cosmic Conundrum is more like a showcase of problems, with none of the enemies destroying properly, making it hard to move through the level, and many enemies not even spawning in the first place. Many of my levels' bosses don't die properly, meaning the level can't be finished. All sorts of gameplay related logic that does not function that either hinders the experience or stops it short copletely.

Many game-vital emitters cease to function, meaning those levels are either not as enjoyable or outright unplayable.

IT's all related to the differences in logic. Eg. In LBP1, it considered connectors to extend the base object for destruction. In LBP2 it only considers glued objects as an extension. It'd be nice to have an option to include non-rigid connections as well in the destruction logic, that would solve so many problems.

I was willing to keep my lbp1 levels live on LBP2 even with the differences in lighting. My levels looked flat, muddy, and hideous in LBP2. But even with that, I kept it up for a time and just left comments "Recommend to play in LBP1" , until I realized that almost none of my levels are able to be finished.

And I agree, LBP2's capabilities should never have had to been held back by anything related to LBP1. The rendering and logic code are so incredibly different.

2011-03-19 14:10:00

Author:
Foofles

Posts: 2278

2011-03-19 14:16:00

Author:
Shadowriver

Posts: 3991

I find it ironic that everybody has their LBP1 levels locked down in LBP2, meaning that BC was a moot point anyways.

Well, I think most LBP1 levels are locked to LBP1 only, BECAUSE the BC did not work.

I spent countless, countless hours on the lighting of my levels (most are darkly lit with a few hundred LED's, etc. ) and I'm not doing it all again.

Not to mention, some lighting effects are completely gone - I have a level called, Dream Catcher II - Shadow Realm - half the level is effects using shadows - which are now all gone from LBP2. So, in this case, I can't even update it.

I have people leave messages on my profile and PSN, asking me when Dream Catcher 3 is coming out, and I have to inform them that the series is broken and most likely (to my great dismay), will not be revisited.

Each of the Dream Catcher levels took me 5 months each. So to me, to not live up the "looking better than ever" catchphrase, was extremely disappointing - and really just a slap in the face after all my time spent in create. At this point, I'd rather them not have had BC then to have what is basically, an outright lie at this point. And to end my series that I spent almost a year on (it didn't occur to me to wait for LBP2, cause we had the promise it would carry over) - so, a year of work - gone. Very depressing.

All of my levels have been made LBP1 only - but only because they look like trash, or in some cases, are unplayable due to lighting.

It was a huge let down to me. I had friends over, they played my Jumper level and loved it (weren't familiar with LBP), and when they asked to play my other levels, I had to give the confusing explaination that LBP2 is compatible with LBP1, but you can't see my old LBP1 levels cause they are all destroyed. . .

Oh well.

2011-03-19 16:12:00

Author:
CYMBOL

Posts: 1230

Mistake? Nah i don't think so

Ability to get level structure from LBP1 levels and have access to them in LBP2 is very useful even if there apperence are diffrent, things you created in LBP1 are always in your hand and you can use pats of older levels in to LBP2. For example let's say you got series that have specific theme in LBP1 and oyu want to continue to do the series in LBP2 with same theme. You don't need to recreate everything from scrach, you can go to your LBP1 level or even reuse whole level with little tuning to use for new LBP2 level

You may not know but Luos and Clay Area 51 hub level was firstly made in LBP1 then upgraded in to LBP2, this shows how BC is actually useful idea. Thing is if they already spend time to make BC then why not allow to play LBP1 levels from the server and let creator ability to lock level if it's really nasty broken? It's not like they are all broken to unplayability

I really hope that this discussion wont encourage MM to fully ignore LBP2 level compatibility in LBP3, or else they want to change complitly way how level is build.

My suggestion for an import/upgrade LBP1 level option addresses this situation and is way more sensible. Now you have levels moving forward that people actually care about and can leave the bulk of the H4H and junk levels behind. I don't see having "The ablitity to import levels from LBP and make them look and play better than ever" as such a bad marketing tag line.

I've slowly come to depise all the gltches, they just make creating more tedious...I opted not to use any on my latest level. Give me a proper compression tool, theck/thack layer support, and foreground/background editor over LBP1 compatiblity any day.

The backwards compatibilty is unacceptable for the automatic opt-in...something as simple as a motor bolt for the clubs in my golf level doesn't work...they now fall apart when you swing them...I can't imagine a level more dumbed down than this one and it's flat out broken. I reported so many problems during the beta and NONE got addressed...that's frustratng too, complete waste of my time.

2011-03-19 16:28:00

Author:
fullofwin

Posts: 1214

Soon after experimenting with the LBP2 beta, something became apparent to me: the tools in LBP2 were much more powerful than anything LBP1 could have. Not simply the logic gates and microchips, but things like movers, destroyers, anti-gravity, movie cameras, bounce pads, sackbots, etc. All of these things could be made in LBP1, but their implementation would take a significant amount of time and thermo compared to what we have in LBP2. That's when I realized that most LBP1 levels had been taken down a peg right off the bat, because there was so much more we could do now, faster and more efficiently.

My theory is this: after any serious creators started releasing new levels, it would trump any (or at least most) of their previous work by a landslide, without having even fully mastered the tools yet. After a few more months, they become more comfortable with the tools, learn new tricks, and make even better levels. At that point, why would anyone go back to LBP1 levels other than out of nostalgia or curiosity?

That's the inherent flaw I see in backwards compatibility: it's only useful as a transition from the old to the new. Once that transition is complete, the use for backwards compatibility drops significantly. But did we really need that transition?

My opinion is that LBP1 started with a clean slate, and got to have many amazing levels that just kept getting better and better over time. LBP PSP started with a clean slate, and the same thing happened. LBP2 would have been no different if it hadn't had LBP1 levels to play (some creators and players might have been miffed in the first few weeks, but honestly, who would have held out on LBP2 just for that reason?). Whether any of the tools/bugs/story levels would have been improved as a result is anyone's guess though.

I've locked pretty much all of my LBP1 levels from LBP2 because of BC issues. I sometimes feel like unlocking SackMech levels, but then I think: why bother unlocking an LBP1 level when I could upgrade it in LBP2 to be even better? Quickly followed by: if I'm going to upgrade an LBP1 level, why not just make an entirely new level that makes good use of the new tools? I guess what I'm saying is that LBP1 level compatibility really doesn't seem all that useful to me now.

TL;DR : Backwards compatibility is useful in theory, not so much in practice.

2011-03-19 17:55:00

Author:
Gilgamesh

Posts: 2536

Hmmmm... there still not to late for patch tuneing

I will play today some LBP1 (since i didn't play much on them on LBP2), at least known once) levels and see how much they are broken, i still think it's overreaction. All i played was so far some bomb and shark survivals and they work fine. I remember played Luos'es LBP1 level on the beta and it look a lot better then in LBP1

2011-03-19 20:22:00

Author:
Shadowriver

Posts: 3991

I don't mind the backwards compatibility. I don't play that many LBP1 levels, but that's just because I don't see as many. I'm still glad for it, though. At least the levels are there.

2011-03-19 21:11:00

Author:
GameRoom

Posts: 200

It's been pointed out to me that I made no mention of DLC / LBP1 create mode assets transferring over. TBH, I kinda considered that transfer of assets would be, as far as possible, an absolute certainty, even with a complete engine change and no compatibility for levels.

That would seem a bit of a daft decision from Sony's POV. Ensuring all the LBP1 DLC was compatible (including the DLC levels in MGS and PotC, which were probably the two top-selling DLC products) was paramount. Why? So they can sell all that stuff to people who never bought LBP1, and bear in mind the total cost of purchasing all the DLC is significantly higher than the cost of buying LBP2.

If LBP2 is, as it claims, "A platform for games DLC sales revenues", then they need only make level back-compat work to the extent of making the LBP1 DLC levels compatible. Okay, so if this has the side-effect of also making some of the community levels work too, then that's a bonus from a marketing POV, but not a necessity, and that's pretty much what happened.

The decision to do it this way means that, for those who never had LBP1, there is a rationale for those users to buy, not only all the LBP1 DLC, but also LBP1 itself, should they want the materials/stickers in its core asset collection. Had they not bothered with back-compat, that rationale would not exist.

So from a revenues POV, I think they made the best decision - it's unfortunate that some users (including myself) would've preferred a different one, but bear in mind, those users are in the minority.

2011-03-19 23:06:00

Author:
Aya042

Posts: 2870

A bit overdramatic about how they "botched" backwards compatibility.

Not really... I didn't say it was botched, merely that it wasn't quite there... And being not quite there is enough to completely break and ruin plenty of levels... At what point do we consider the backwards compatibility to be acceptable? That you can load a level and it doesn't crash the system?? No, the intent, as evidenced by everything that happened during the beta, was that peoples' existing creations should work as they worked before. They weren't supposed to be ruined, artistically, by the new lighting effects, they weren't supposed to be uncompletable due to changes in the simulation....

I don't even really mind that much that levels were ruined, not really, not for the sake of the levels themselves. It is a question of how did all this actually benefit anyone, and might things have been better for everyone if another route was taken. If so, what might that route be.

I can't help thinking that if Mm HAD scrapped backwards compatibility, and instead implemented those few extra features (as useful as they are), people would have been saying "how hard could it have been to get BC? why do we need all of these features when we could have had BC?" Indeed, and I totally think that is the case. The games seem similar enough at the core that the BC seems like it should have been a given. But it's not and I guess we had to see how broken things could be before any of us might have realized this. Which is why it is retrospective. Hindsight gets a lot of bad press for being too convenient, but it's how lessons are learned

Also I see where you are coming from with the suggestions of what they could have done instead, but ... there would STILL have been bugs, because there are ALWAYS bugs in any software. You may also have ended up with features you didn't need at all, whereas now Mm can listen to what the community wants. I think Mm have proven their ability to support the community, so we know that improvements are coming, and that they will be community-driven.

TBH, I doubt we would have had any bonus features on release... Remember the game was delayed by 2 months and a LOT of the effort spent during the beta period was on getting backwards compatibility to work with beta users existing levels, and a lot of potential bug reporting on new things may have been drowned out by the complaints of old levels being broken (which is reasonable - we were told they should work). More likely we would have been sitting with the game by xmas, and new tools / features / a level pack maybe would be coming to us some time around now. And of course, every piece of software has bugs and in something like LBP, with so many permutations of factors, it's an absolute nightmare... But rushing to deadlines in crunch mode with way too much functionality to develop and test is what leads to bugs in individual units - local space camera not working, points givers scaled over time not working, etc. Forget the big bugs that come from complex interactions of systems - these are bugs at the most basic level of functionality.

Well More logic survival game got lightning not as original and much dimmer and and in Caltron it reduces 2 lifes instead of one (faster logic?). So it's not so bad on my side

You might not think it's bad and that's cool - I don't want to get anyone all worked up over BC issues, because we should be looking forward. But it fundamentally changes the nature of aspects of the game you've created... It's not the same creation anymore. Changing how many lives you have is an inherent aspect of how a game plays and should be a very conscious factor in the design of a game for balancing reasons. So what was the point in them spending so much effort on trying to get the levels to work? Because someone prematurely made that promise to us. That's the only reason.

It also annoys me that the beta once looked more visually stunning than the final product we are playing now, but a subsequent update weakened the overall look of the game so that the new lighting engine would be more compatible with LBP settings. It really wasn't rocket science for us to simply tweak the light settings in our old levels, and certainly in my case, once I had taken 10 minutes to do this my old levels looked better than ever, but since that update neither my LBP1 nor my LBP2 levels seem to look quite so good as they did in the early versions of the beta.

This is actually the most solid example of something we've permanently lost because of the BC promise. Because the old levels were supposed to work properly in the new engine, they "downgraded" the new engine...

If LBP2 is, as it claims, "A platform for games DLC sales revenues", then they need only make level back-compat work to the extent of making the LBP1 DLC levels compatible. Okay, so if this has the side-effect of also making some of the community levels work too, then that's a bonus from a marketing POV, but not a necessity, and that's pretty much what happened.
Except it's not what happened. I'd have been happy if the level of backwards compatibility for UGC had occurred as a "side effect", but it didn't. It was an explicit and prominent feature of the product. Too much time was spent on making it work just about hang together in the beta. It was an inherent part of the mission plan, to pull every single level from the original game and not only have them working properly... They were going to be better... Was that really the best thing from a revenues standpoint, or would the simple ability to import your levels to the new editor, with no specific promises that it would be working exactly the same and certainly no promises lies about it being improved, have been just as much of a money maker as ever.

it's unfortunate that some users (including myself) would've preferred a different one, but bear in mind, those users are in the minority.
The majority (~85% apparently) of the users are completely casual and never actually create anything. I would imagine (while we're speculating on what everyone wants) the majority of users wouldn't really have cared either way...

Ability to get level structure from LBP1 levels and have access to them in LBP2 is very useful even if there apperence are diffrent,

...

I really hope that this discussion wont encourage MM to fully ignore LBP2 level compatibility in LBP3, or else they want to change complitly way how level is build.

Of course it is useful... But there is a whole world of difference between just getting levels into the editor and a proper backwards compatibility model. I wouldn't want MM and Sony to completely ignore backwards compatibility in future (that would just be rushing from one extreme to the other with no thought for what lies between), but I'd hope they would learn something from this, for any attempts to do BC on any UGC-heavy titles in the future. Because what they were striving for didn't work.

Ensuring all the LBP1 DLC was compatible (including the DLC levels in MGS and PotC, which were probably the two top-selling DLC products) was paramount. Why? So they can sell all that stuff to people who never bought LBP1, and bear in mind the total cost of purchasing all the DLC is significantly higher than the cost of buying LBP2. Agreed, but what does this have to do with the insane amounts of time spent trying to get things to work with the user-levels? Remembering of course that the DLC levels are actually just data downloaded as part of a patch, and could be repatched themselves. To get the DLC levels working well in the new engine and the old could probably have been done as a mixture of minor tweaks to the new engine and minor tweaks to the levels (in a development environment that would allow comparison). Or if need be, they could have gone through the same process as users - create an LBP1 and an LBP2 version. I still think that could probably have been easier to develop, test and verify for a small number of isolated cases than attempt everything.

My suggestion for an import/upgrade LBP1 level option addresses this situation and is way more sensible. Now you have levels moving forward that people actually care about and can leave the bulk of the H4H and junk levels behind. I don't see having "The ablitity to import levels from LBP and make them look and play better than ever" as such a bad marketing tag line.

It needs some better wording, but I think it's bang on the money

As various people have pointed out, the community did need this ability to bring things forwards. With the game actually moving on like this and effectively making LBP1 (in concept, if not in fact) redundant, the last few months of LBP1 would have been completely dead - as I said before I completely forgot about those people not in the beta when writing my OP. But what we didn't need was something to magically make all levels work perfectly in the new game.

So, I feel like I'm gonna restate my thoughts, having had time to digest more things and take into account some of the aspects that hadn't really occurred to me, as they don't affect me personally... So this is an attempt to sum up the needs of both the community as a whole (difficult) and Sony WRT Backwards Compatibility:

In the transition between one iteration of the game and another, being able to bring content forwards is clearly important. Not only because completed creations could be pulled forward, but also so that the customerbase is not completely demoralised in the lead up to the new game - the inability to bring created things forward would have led to many people simply dropping the franchise for a period of months... Some of them may never return. Even if they do return those months would be damaging. So in some way or another, the data structures should be importable to the new game. Even if some things break or some things look wildly different, it's a huge benefit to us to be able to pull something across.

It's also clear that DLC must be compatible. Creation assets add up to a large quantity of money over time and none of us wanted . Also, DLC compatibility allows Sony to continue monetising existing products, which is profit for nothing. Compatibility of DLC levels is a more complex scenario and requires that in some way the levels bought as part of the level packs should work in the new game. If user-generated content can be pulled forward into the new game and edited at will, then it seems there should be little problem doing the same with these levels.

At no point does the automatic pulling forward of all LBP1 levels actually benefit anyone. Sure, it's not really hurt us, as the scenario I describe above is pretty much what we have now... But I can't help but feel that if what we do have is (more or less) what they had aimed for, a basic export / import facility one way between the games, with some level of compatibility, then a lot less resource would have been wasted and there would have been less design constraints on what could and couldn't have been done. I don't know what the end result of that would have been, but in my experience, less waste and less awkward design constraints normally leads to something better overall.

2011-03-20 15:30:00

Author:
rtm223

Posts: 6497

Except it's not what happened.

Source? I mean, how do we really know what the devs spent most of their time working on?

Sensibly prioritizing the goals of a project is important, particularly when you're working to a strict deadline, and if I were the project manager for LBP2, making sure that all the UGC was fully compatible would be pretty low on the list, as it doesn't really generate much additional revenue.

Ensuring that the DLC content worked, on the other hand, would be much higher, because it has the potential to generate quite a bit of additional revenue. Now, given that the DLC levels probably use most of the Create Mode features from LBP1, then once you've ensured their compatilibily, then a fairly substantial proportion of the Community Levels would also work too.

I'd have been happy if the level of backwards compatibility for UGC had occurred as a "side effect", but it didn't. It was an explicit and prominent feature of the product.

Okay, maybe "side effect" was a little understated for comic effect. I mean beyond the work required for DLC-compatibility, if there's a small five-minute job they can do to make an additional, say, 5% of UGC compatible, then it's probably worth doing. For example, in earlier iterations of the beta, thin gas was visible - changing it so it's invisible is probably no big deal.

If, on the other hand, there's one or two levels which use some really obscure glitch which would take hundreds of man-hours to make compatible, they probably wouldn't bother.

As for UGC back-compat being explicit and prominent, this article (https://lbpcentral.lbp-hub.com/index.php?t=26720-We-may-not-get-100-BC) from May 2010 says quite the opposite, making the "...still there, and looking better than ever..." just a bit of marketing spin, which you could read as "the new lighting engine could potentially make them look better, but there's no guarantee they'll actually function as intended".

The majority (~85% apparently) of the users are completely casual and never actually create anything. I would imagine (while we're speculating on what everyone wants) the majority of users wouldn't really have cared either way...

The question is, does this majority also buy the DLC? If so, then making that work is a big win for Sony. And it's not as if those in the minority, who would've preferred a better product at the expense of no back-compat, would refuse to purchase LBP2 if they didn't get their way.

QED.

Agreed, but what does this have to do with the insane amounts of time spent trying to get things to work with the user-levels?

Again, I see little evidence to support the assertion that the devs spent "insane amounts of time" worrying about UGC-compat, beyond what they got for free by making LBP2 DLC-compat with LBP1.

Remembering of course that the DLC levels are actually just data downloaded as part of a patch, and could be repatched themselves.

Good point, and they probably were repatched to some extent - given the substantial changes to the lighting engine, there'd probably be a few tweaks required for that, but there's no way they'd go to the extent of rebuilding the whole lot from scratch.

...being able to bring content forwards is clearly important. Not only because completed creations could be pulled forward, but also so that the customerbase is not completely demoralised in the lead up to the new game - the inability to bring created things forward would have led to many people simply dropping the franchise for a period of months... Some of them may never return. Even if they do return those months would be damaging.

I think that's a pretty wild exaggeration. If they'd gone along the route of ditching all back-compat, so they could substantially change the format, perhaps by making a full 3D simulation rather than 2.5D, do you really believe the hardcore LBP1 creators would drop the franchise?

Okay, maybe I'm a unusual case, because I was in the beta, but I knew that LBP2 wasn't truly back-compat with LBP1, and I knew that it was so buggy there was no way they'd have time to fix it in time for release, but I still bought it anyway.

Can you name a single person (from the hardcore minority who even cares about this sort of thing) who didn't buy LBP2, or returned it for a refund, because it didn't live up to their expectations?

At no point does the automatic pulling forward of all LBP1 levels actually benefit anyone.

Well, it's a small win for Sony, so they can use their spin phrases like "...still there, and looking better than ever...", in the hopes that the promise of some playable UGC from the get-go might attact a few more people, but it's probably marginal.

But I can't help but feel that if what we do have is (more or less) what they had aimed for, a basic export / import facility one way between the games, with some level of compatibility, then a lot less resource would have been wasted and there would have been less design constraints on what could and couldn't have been done. I don't know what the end result of that would have been, but in my experience, less waste and less awkward design constraints normally leads to something better overall.

Y'know, that might've worked, actually, although it does place the responsibility of transferring LBP1 UGC to LBP2 onto the creators who made them. But if the level of compatibilty was low enough that the creators would've had to spend a significant amount of time tweaking their creations, they probably wouldn't bother - they're probably far more interested in creating something new, particularly as the new features in LBP2 open up many more creative possibilities.

So the question is, if they want some UGC available from the get-go, is it better to give the users access to the (not insignficant) subset of previously published LBP1 levels which still work tolerably on LBP2, or have faith in the creators to spend their time manually porting their levels, rather than building new (and better) stuff?

2011-03-20 17:56:00

Author:
Aya042

Posts: 2870

Whew.... that was a lot of reading..... O.o

Well, in my case - I'm really glad they make an attempt to include backward compatibility. As a game "engine" I expected some form of backward compatibility. I spent a lot of time on my earlier levels, and would be disappointed if they tossed it all for LBP2. LBP is a form of dev tool, and dev tools generally have SOME kind of migration path.

I've gone through and updated the Splat Invaders series and Roll out the barrel. They've had pretty decent ratings since being updated with some of the LPB2 features.

HOWEVER, implementation probably could have been a bit different. Maybe they should have made the LBP1 levels LBP1 only by default, and advertised levels could be imported and updated rather than advertising them to be backward compatible.

2011-03-20 19:31:00

Author:
CCubbage

Posts: 4430

Interesting topic indeed. I was originally of the mindset that BC was a fantastic idea, and yes... even necessary. I remember just before getting our beta keys here in Canada NA, seeing a fantastic video on some of the new lighting aspects of the game. I was blown away! The new hazards in the video looked pretty ugly to me, but I figured they were a work in progress still. The news of the new logic options had me all excited too, as I'm really not very good with it and am a "visual" creator.

When I originally began to learn about the new game, all it's new tools and possibilities, and the fact that it was going to be completely BC, I decided straight away to drop all other projects and begin working on something I could translate into LBP2 that would allow me to simply add new logic or tweaks to in order to finally be able to actually make the kind of level that LBP simply wouldn't allow me to do to any good effect. Perhaps it's my own fault for believing that BC was something Mm already had a hold on. Perhaps some of you may think I was naiive in thinking things would look and perform the same. Truth is, I'm not a programmer and took Mm's word that all those levels would still be there and look "better than ever" (insert slap in the face here).

Fast forward to "Dear Rustbukkit... you noa haz a beeta key!!".

STOKED!

I opened up my beta and began playing. Wonderful stuff! I began playing with the new tools. Wonderfully confuzing stuff! I loaded my old levels. WTF? What is THIS attrocity I'm looking at? I didn't make this? I was completely horrified.

I took quite a bit of flack from several members here for being vocal about my disappointment in the BC issues, as well as some of the changes made throughout the beta. It was pretty unfair of them I think. Especially considering that here we are many months after their statements of "It's only the beta, it's not finished yet, just relax already!" have STILL not changed the fact that the game's BC issues are for the most part broken and LBP levels look just as horrible as they did back then.

When I first joined the beta... the lighting was certainly less than BC and although it looked better, it simply didn't physically perform the same. Big issue for myself and many other creators right there who are "visual artists" and create with this element in mind. Most of my levels were completely ruined due to lighting issues alone. Anything with hazards... forget it.

Then one of the beta patches came along and changed the lighting again. Not only did it still not interact with other objects the way it did in LBP... but now it didn't even look as good. This was the pivotal moment for me. It was then that I finally realized that BC was never something Mm had under control. It was then that I realized we had been sold a lie, and that BC was something that very early on should have been dropped (other than being able to import DLC, and perhaps our objects and costumes). I would have much preferred an official statement from Mm saying, "Sorry folks, we've decided that BC will no longer be an option due to the many problems it's causing between the two game engines. We spoke too soon. We know you will all forgive us and move on because we are for the most part, full of awesome-sauce... and that we all make mistakes sometimes and owning up to those mistakes is always the best course of action. You will still be able to import all your LBP objects and costumes you've created, as well as any DLC you've purchased. But a lot of levels will simply look like garbage or will actually physically be broken and unplayable, so they won't be able to be played at all in LBP2 We are doing this in your best interest... trust us. Mm"

Sure the timing in this may seem a little off for Mm to have sent any inaginary letter like that, but they had to know pretty early on that BC was turning out to be a major issue and very problematic.

I would have much preferred if their time was better spent (as the OP has suggested) concentrating on new tools working properly, and BC issue bugs with the smaller things like deco's showing through things, etc., than spending all that time trying to address the problems of trying to live up to "and looking better than ever" "oops... we spoke way too soon!"

What's done is done now, and I have no intentions of ever going back to anything LBP. I'm still baffled that all the lighting issues this new engine had in the beta are still there, and can't for the life of me figure out why they were missed. There's still plenty wrong with this game, and I mostly blame BC for that. It really ticks me off, when I do go searching for something to play and find that it's a level created in LBP and looks terrible, because frankly... LBP levels have no place in this game's engine if you ask me.

2011-03-20 19:58:00

Author:
Rustbukkit

Posts: 1737

The moment I played my first lbp1 levels in lbp2.. i felt dissapointed..
Even after the huge BC update in the beta.. lights are just ugly..
Lights glitched into the BG just dont work anymore (no longer having fog/raycasting) and I recently found out you cant bolt anything to thin layer (invissi) gas.
Reason why I would want to use thin invissi gas? as its material is stronger on the str. table than holo..
which is so weak it would not be able to steal candy from a comatose baby..
(You can bolt objects in front of thin gas, but not if the thin gas is in front of the object, So I.. or rather clay went back to lbp1, bolted some thin gasses in various ways and when imported it worked)

I also noticed that almost all of my lbp1 levels are uneditable in lbp2 due to overheating.
In some cases I had to remove 2 giant rooms to get the thermo back into an editable state.. which makes me wonder if we really got less thermo in lbp2 than we did in lbp1.
(Even my lbp2 beta levels are overheating in the full game, so bad actually that beh ta 1 is averagely 3 bars over the max thermo)

the only reason I like the BC is that I can get all the glitches from lbp1 (aya's garden of goodies), the lbp1 materials/decos and the DLC.
But besides that.. the BC only annoys the hell out of me..
occasionally you still see "Pool with REAL!! water" levels and the like somewhere in the top 3 list of cool levels and that to me just screams epic fail and occasionally gets a RRAAGGE out of me.

So I fully agree that I rather have a bugless or at least more bugfree lbp2 than having a level BC LBP2.

On the note "I rather have bots that could swim" could be easily solved by pathnoding.. something allready used in the early 90's in most games to tell the AI where it needs to go.. cant believe MM didnt think of that. Pathnodes would solve a lot of things..
especially if you could tell the bots if its on an elevator, has to jump and what not.

I could go on for a long time about BC.. but ill leave it at this.
LBP2 is amazing for what it is, but it could have been so so much more..
we dont have much control on game enders, actual sackboys and even a lot of the logic and materials could have some tweaks/additional tweak menu's to make our lifes much much easier.
but MM chose to not do this, and in the end.. we are victim of this.
(i.e. I wrote a honest and interesting 130 editor suggestions which was plain ignored while most of it would increase our workflow at least a few hours a day.. which would result in able to focus more on the level and less on i.e. tweaking crap.)

oh yea, i said id leave it at this..
I better do that.

wait.. no.. (edit).
160 hour bug that still exists in lbp2... nuff said?

Nice thread RTM, and a nice read at this.

*hug*

2011-03-20 20:49:00

Author:
Luos_83

Posts: 2136

This is a tricky question. I thought backwards compatibility at first would be useful but now that we're a couple of months in it's more annoying than anything.

I like the ability to import objects I've made in the previous game but I don't think having things from LBP1 directly accessible from LBP2 has really added anything. I don't even remember the last time I played a LBP1 level.

/shortest response in thread.

2011-03-20 21:21:00

Author:
Ayneh

Posts: 2454

lol i don't how BC can be annoying then anything ^^' In general BC is optional figure in the platform and levels a still mostly playable and it mostly for people om "play" side of the game, since creators ofcorse gonna do LBP2 stuff. Besides do you guys 100% sure that game would be better without BC, isn't imperfection of BC is a sign game is better anyway? Look on other BC histories:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoCD9TwLrVs

Do this made any PS2 developer to go to Sony and say to block there game in PS3 because it not look the same or uglier, little reminder that some games didn't even been playable. Besides there a reason why stats on LBP1 and LBP2 are different, because they look different in both games, i also heard somewhere else (some people know where) that LBP community don't care about stats and how level is high, so whats the difference? i also read here that some people dont care about LBP1 levels and all it's stuff at all, so why BC ability is so annoying then everything?

I impressed how this game is so integrated to LBP1 content and games themselves and one of biggest aspects i like in LBP2 and this discussion reminds me talk how planed Move DLC is annoying which is pretty much equal to "Omg the added camera support for SDK to iPod touch is so useless and annoying, why they added that there".

2011-03-20 22:35:00

Author:
Shadowriver

Posts: 3991

i also read here that some people dont care about LBP1 levels and all it's stuff at all, so why BC ability is so annoying then everything?
You can't choose to filter searches so you turn up pages and pages of LBP1 levels that either don't work or are otherwise not as the publisher intended.

When I first tried to find Fang's music level I couldn't remember their PSN, but I couldn't find anything using the search because of the reams of LBP1 levels that would come up.

I impressed how this game is so integrated to LBP1 content and games themselves and one of biggest aspects i like in LBP2 and this discussion reminds me talk how planed Move DLC is annoying which is pretty much equal to "Omg the added camera support for SDK to iPod touch is so useless and annoying, why they added that there".
Nobody complained about adding support for sound recording to LBP. Camera support has been there since the start. Move is another kettle of fish and doesn't add functionality in the same way as, say, image import would.

The other comparison you made isn't really fair. How is maintaining access to LBP1 stuff in LBP2 similar to software emulation of games on entirely different platforms?

2011-03-21 01:40:00

Author:
Ayneh

Posts: 2454

You can't choose to filter searches so you turn up pages and pages of LBP1 levels that either don't work or are otherwise not as the publisher intended.

When I first tried to find Fang's music level I couldn't remember their PSN, but I couldn't find anything using the search because of the reams of LBP1 levels that would come up.

Well thats not problem of BC and even without BC problem of crap levels would return over time. Btw did you know about text filter in cool pages and other stuff ;]?

Nobody complained about adding support for sound recording to LBP. Camera support has been there since the start.

So why complain about adding other things?

Move is another kettle of fish and doesn't add functionality in the same way as, say, image import would.

But is not bad thing and not annoying and still add more possibilities, but people still are in pain. Do anybody complain about PSEye support device that not all people have?

The other comparison you made isn't really fair. How is maintaining access to LBP1 stuff in LBP2 similar to software emulation of games on entirely different platforms?

That was not software emulation, if you lurk a little bit you would know that first PS3 models had practicably PS2 hardware built in, later on they removed EE CPU and software mutate (it's still working for PS1 BC) and later on they removed GS GPU which was not emulated so they removed PS2 support complitly. Even so it not does matter how it was done, Sony released in way how in that was and none of developers come to them to ban there game on that BC

2011-03-21 06:32:00

Author:
Shadowriver

Posts: 3991

Most of my levels aren't what they were, with a couple completly broken and few just a bit worse. Having said that, you have to wonder if anyone with LBP2 plays LBP1 levels anymore, I tend to filter them out when searching Cool Pages so I can avoid stuff like H4H and what have you.

2011-03-21 09:18:00

Author:
kirbyman62

Posts: 1893

I think that the backwards compatibility is vital for the game.
First of all it grants the life of the old levels.
It's a common business today to shut the servers of an online game when the sequel is released, so in LBP case it would have meant 2 years of outstanding creations destroyed.
The little flaws on the levels are just minimal and negligible in the vast majority of the cases.
It's great that every asset is just there ready to our need, and the import feature is really neat, quick, simple and useful.

But as I said, the backwards compatibility grants the history of the game to remain written as long as possible, and it grants the chance to play old great masterpieces even to newcomers.
That's the best thing about it.

2011-03-21 10:20:00

Author:
OmegaSlayer

Posts: 5112

The little flaws on the levels are just minimal and negligible in the vast majority of the cases.

That may be true for you, but I would have liked every LBP1 creator to make that decision for themselves.

Three out of four LBP1 levels of mine were broken by the new engine to a point so far removed from my intentions that I regarded them unfit for public presentation. (It seems worth adding that none was even touching on being demanding in terms of physics, game or lighting performance, relying on glitches or physics corner cases - very conservative designs, all of them.) I think it shows a substantial lack of respect towards my work to make it accessible in LBP2 without my consent.

A clean slate, getting rid of the old bugs, and the possibility to import your old levels and decide for yourself if you want to publish them for LBP2 would have been the way.

2011-03-21 10:40:00

Author:
tameturtle

Posts: 150

The little flaws on the levels are just minimal and negligible in the vast majority of the cases.

I must be real unlucky then, because all of my LBP1 levels are currently undergoing pallative care at the hospice due to having terminal cancer.

2011-03-21 10:50:00

Author:
Ungreth

Posts: 2130

I must be real unlucky then, because all of my LBP1 levels are currently undergoing pallative care at the hospice due to having terminal cancer.

I call them small, because IMHO having the level saved even if botched/flawed is better than not having them at all.

2011-03-21 11:15:00

Author:
OmegaSlayer

Posts: 5112

OK I don't know what everyone here has been smoking/doing with their levels, but I just went and tested some of my levels.

Absolutely ZERO issues. They work 100% flawlessly. Visually, I can understand, but personally aside from a couple of things I honestly think my levels look better (my "The World's 3rd Largest Cardboard Box Factory" level I think looks much better). And trust me, I use a LOT of advanced logic in these levels (see my "Coin Puzzle - Hard" level), and also a lot of abuse of the physics engine to get them to work (again, in "Coin Puzzle - Hard", often the parts of the robot arm would literally flip out and return to their original positions because the physics engine was under strain).

Now there was one level which broke halfway through but as I have already explained - this was more to do with me pushing LBP1 to the limit; as soon as I opened and re-saved the level it would break in LBP1, so it comes as no surprise that opening and exporting the level to LBP2 should break it. I don't think Mm could have done anything here to save it.

I would like to know specifically what things have been broken in LBP2 (which things work differently) because I just don't see it. Now maybe it's the case that the levels I haven't played DO break in LBP2, but even still by the fact that some of my levels work perfectly I think saying they "botched" backwards compatibility is a total exaggeration.

2011-03-21 18:05:00

Author:
thor

Posts: 388

I would like to know specifically what things have been broken in LBP2 (which things work differently) because I just don't see it.

One thing that broke 3 of my levels is that my painball counters don't work anymore. So, I captured a paintball and throw it at a paintball switch to create counter logic. Because of this, in Sea Dragon the submarine no longer takes damage, the turrets in Destiny! are now indestructable, and in Vertigo none of the enemies can be destroyed. Unfortunately for Vertigo, which was my favorite level, it would require rebuilding the entire level, as most of it which contains this logic is emitted.... and there are HUNDREDS of carefully placed emitters.

As for lighting, it was common to hide a huge spotlight outside of an area as a light source. On many of my levels I put a lot of work into getting this lighting perfect. In LBP2, material now blocks this light so that all the areas are completely dark.

Granted, with the lighting there are better lighting tools in LBP2 that can invisibly light an area better, however many of the effects produced in LBP1 simply can't be reproduced in EXACTLY the same way. However, I've been perfectly happy to replace the lighting with the newer objects and get a nice...albiet different.... effect.

We've also seen the physics change with Sackboy bouncing off flames. There are MANY levels that require sackboy to bounce off fire and grab onto something, or bounce and land on a safe piece of land afterwards. These levels broke until the area is adjusted. Happened for the latest "Oh no the princess" level which was released a week before LBP2.... and people who received the pre-release discs couldn't finish the level.

Where thermo is concerned, the thermo is so totally different that in most of my levels I got 30-50% thermo BACK... lots more to play with....

2011-03-21 18:38:00

Author:
CCubbage

Posts: 4430

Ya my levels haven't had much luck with backward compatibility. If you ignore the lighting (which is messed up in most cases) there are a few that overheat completely and the boss in Chroma Stone 2 is completely non functional (paintball emit thing like CCubbages.)

I haven't gone through and made the decision to leave or delete them yet. Right now they are all still available to play. I just don't have the time to go through and try and fix them right now.

2011-03-21 18:48:00

Author:
Morgana25

Posts: 5983

In LBP2, material now blocks this light so that all the areas are completely dark.

Really? In the level I started the other day light is not blocked at all by walls, which is annoying because the level is set in dark "place" and not seeing what's in the next room is kinda important.

Edit: I'm using lights from the Fantastic Four DLC.

2011-03-21 18:49:00

Author:
Syroc

Posts: 3193

I must be real unlucky then, because all of my LBP1 levels are currently undergoing pallative care at the hospice due to having terminal cancer.

Well mopst people that made great level used some workarounds or hacks of things that are no predicted by developers, this is where things usually fail in BC

2011-03-21 19:00:00

Author:
Shadowriver

Posts: 3991

I've had some physics breaking, creature brain, emitter not firing and foggy light issues in my levels (Midnight Train and SackMech). Some of the SackMech levels still work okay (with minor issues), but because it's a series I can't keep some of them locked while others aren't, it wouldn't make much sense. Also, the SackMech Prologue movie level is pretty much entirely broken. I didn't use any fancy glitches or anything in general, with the exception of extra layer lights in one level, and some extra layer backgrounds.

2011-03-21 19:26:00

Author:
Gilgamesh

Posts: 2536

One thing that broke 3 of my levels is that my painball counters don't work anymore. So, I captured a paintball and throw it at a paintball switch to create counter logic. Because of this, in Sea Dragon the submarine no longer takes damage, the turrets in Destiny! are now indestructable, and in Vertigo none of the enemies can be destroyed. Unfortunately for Vertigo, which was my favorite level, it would require rebuilding the entire level, as most of it which contains this logic is emitted.... and there are HUNDREDS of carefully placed emitters.

My paintball counters work. I use them to count the number of hits required to kill enemies in "Highway Onslaught". So something more specific/different is going wrong here.

As for lighting, it was common to hide a huge spotlight outside of an area as a light source. On many of my levels I put a lot of work into getting this lighting perfect. In LBP2, material now blocks this light so that all the areas are completely dark.

Granted, with the lighting there are better lighting tools in LBP2 that can invisibly light an area better, however many of the effects produced in LBP1 simply can't be reproduced in EXACTLY the same way. However, I've been perfectly happy to replace the lighting with the newer objects and get a nice...albiet different.... effect.

I never used this, could be a pain, though I wouldn't have thought of doing this because I'd have thought the material would block the light :/

We've also seen the physics change with Sackboy bouncing off flames. There are MANY levels that require sackboy to bounce off fire and grab onto something, or bounce and land on a safe piece of land afterwards. These levels broke until the area is adjusted. Happened for the latest "Oh no the princess" level which was released a week before LBP2.... and people who received the pre-release discs couldn't finish the level.

Finally something that is actually broken. I wonder why they changed this? I suppose they re-wrote fire graphics entirely.

Where thermo is concerned, the thermo is so totally different that in most of my levels I got 30-50% thermo BACK... lots more to play with....

. However, with Morgana25 and Drunkenfist_Lee there have been levels that overheat just trying to load them. Lee can't edit Bright Lights Big City at all in LBP2.

I'm sure there are more, but I haven't run into too many things myself.

My levels that were just on the edge of max thermo work just fine. I tried to keep it under max because it would break in LBP1 (sticker thermo would overload). This is certainly something that _could_ break some levels, but then again, it is worth it to be able to put a lot more into levels. I think a better solution would be to not block the game from emitting stuff/people editing a level at max thermo. This is something that is broken also, but again, for me it is an improvement.

Again, I can see how graphically things may have got messed up, because people are using glitches to create visual "effects" rather than using light sources as light sources. But physically/logically I think they have done a pretty good job.

2011-03-21 19:32:00

Author:
thor

Posts: 388

OK I don't know what everyone here has been smoking/doing with their levels, but I just went and tested some of my levels.

For me mostly lighting issues. Either way too dark or spots not working at all as in LBP1. Also issues with thrusters not putting out the same level of smoke as well as clumpy looking gas rather than the nice wispy it once was. Electrified objects glowing 10 times brighter as well as fire. Not terrible per my circumstances, just unexpected.

..in most cases, it wasn't a game breaker per say for me, but quite disappointing to go to a cut view awaiting some great special effects and only see some doors open and a platform come down.

And most of those issues prior to smoking anything.

2011-03-21 19:33:00

Author:
jwwphotos

Posts: 11383

OK I don't know what everyone here has been smoking/doing with their levels, but I just went and tested some of my levels.

Why are you assuming the fault lies with us?

The BC functions of the game simply don't function properly. Do you seriously think all these people (many of whom are serious and good creators) are simply on crack or lying about thier levels being either physically or visually broken?

but even still by the fact that some of my levels work perfectly I think saying they "botched" backwards compatibility is a total exaggeration.

And yet, the fact remains that BC doesn't work 100%, our levels don't look "better than ever", and that people's levels are unfit to be played in LBP2. If Ford started selling engine parts and claiming them to be backward compatible with older models of thier vehicles when in fact they gave you less mileage, would restrict your engine from starting at all, or caused it to catch on fire... would saying the part is not BC also be an exaggeration? What if you bought the part just like everyone else but didn't have anything go wrong with your vehicle like others? Would that mean that the part is in fact fully BC? I don't think so.

This is one of the things that really ticks me off about the community. This attitude of "Well, it's not happening to me so it's not a problem and you people are all crazy, are whiners, or on drugs. It's just not fair to the rest of us who are seeing these issues or are affected by them.

Well mopst people that made great level used some workarounds or hacks of things that are no predicted by developers, this is where things usually fail in BC

Not always true, at least not from other discussions I seem to recall... though you may atually be right and I can't say with 100% certainty that levels have broken without these things being involved. However, where visual's are concerned this is definitely not the case. The lighting and hazard change issues alone should have been enough for Mm to rethink this whole BC thing. My levels rely heavily on lighting and hazards to create mood and atmosphere. Lighting is one of the tools I was given by Mm to use. Now, those same tools they gave me have been changed by them and no longer work the same. In short, those tools are broken. They should have either made sure the lights work the same way (and don't tell me it's not possible, I don't buy it), or they should have given us new lights that give us the same effects if they wanted to call this game BC.

This discussion has come up in the past and people were pretty much talking down to us visual people saying that just because the lighting is different doesn't mean it's broken. To them, I'd simply say "You are an idiot... move along." It's funny because these same people would rave about someone's level looking amazing or being beautiful, yet have almost zero respect for our arguements that lighting changes between the two engines have rendered our levels broken. It's a bit two-faced if you ask me.

2011-03-21 19:50:00

Author:
Rustbukkit

Posts: 1737

Tons of my logic in the levels failed in LBP 2, so I am just stuck knowing people will play my levels and frown them or deal with updating and importing them. I did spend long times on them, so it may be worth importing them...since I get a bit OCD and go back to my old levels and update them all the time. My question is if we like our old levels do we spend the time importing them and making them even better, or do we leave them broke and leave space for new levels? I really want to update my Choice level, but that will remove 6 level spaces on my moon...and then do I delete the LBP 1 levels when I do, since I made one level in LBP1 and just now finished it in LBP 2 I wish I could lock the LBP 1 version for LBP 1 players only...since for one I think it is broke in LBP 1.

Oh on the flip side importing them seems to instantly fix the 160 hr glitch in LBP 1...is it worth recovering pistons back to .1 from .3 or .5 to loose all that space? Sorry if that is off topic, but just found in an old level while showing someone the bug that it instantly fixes it.

2011-03-21 19:55:00

Author:
celsus

Posts: 822

Honestly when LBP2 was first announced, i was really sad and dissapointed.. i was actually one of those persons who were like: "What the hell?? I'm not going to buy this game, all my months and countless hours of efforts into my levels will be lost!!".

When Mm said that "All LBP1 levels were compatible", i was really relived.. but i was still worried because i wasn't sure if they would still work, because i abused LBP1's engine alot with glitches such as the thermo glitch, 3d glitch, etc, in like all of my levels..

The first thing i did when i got the beta was to check if my LBP1 stuff worked properly.. The result was that absolutely none of them worked even remotely they way they were meant to.. my LBP1 stuff didn't even look like levels anymore but rather like complete jokes.
Note: I did my best to report all backwards compabilty bugs i found.. some were fixed, some were still not fixed.

For instance the 2D gas that i put in LBP1 to prevent players to change layers/remove stickers were visible and made the level look like a gigantic piece of smoke.. speech bubbles would randomly activate themselves when they were not meant to at random parts of the level.. but by far the worst problem was that no emitter worked,. at all.

After going in create mode i found out that all my levels were overheated in LBP2 when they weren't in LBP1. AND the thermo went up by even 25% more after the second patch, so i LITTERALY would have had to delete over 50% of the level for it not to be overheated in LBP2..

I didn't bother creating much in the beta, since i didn't see much purpose to work on stuff that would be lost anyway.. i just used the beta to get used to the new tools, and experimented with them and such, so i could be a better creator in the full game..

When the full game came out, i started spending alot of time in create.. and the first level i did there was just 1000X better than anything i could have done in LBP1..

When i was halfway done with the level, i played one of my LBP1 levels just for the lulz to see how it was, and i couldn't believe how terrible it was in comparison.. I had the urge to delete all my LBP1 levels, or at least to make them LBP1 only (wich i did)..

I am now avoiding all LBP1 levels, and i couldn't really care less about what happened to my LBP1 stuff anymore.. It's kinda funny since i probably never imagined i'd react like that back in 2010..

I guess Mm did the right thing by trying to add backwards compabilty though.. Actually i believe that LBP1 would have died off at one point if LBP2 didn't arrive.. most people got bored of it and played other stuff instead, and the game was taken over by extremely nooby troll spammers, wich i don't want to be reminded of, since we don't have them in LBP2

2011-03-21 20:09:00

Author:
thi766

Posts: 135

Really? In the level I started the other day light is not blocked at all by walls, which is annoying because the level is set in dark "place" and not seeing what's in the next room is kinda important.

Edit: I'm using lights from the Fantastic Four DLC.

That could be one of the lighting bugs causing that; it seems that when objects move just offscreen, they no longer are factored into lighting & shadow calculations so lights seemingly can pop on and off for no apparent reason. You can see this from the very start in a new, blank level...travel float your sackboy straight up and watch the shadow draw in on the side of the left wall.

2011-03-21 20:34:00

Author:
Chazprime

Posts: 587

I see all those problem people are mentioning, but again, I ask to everyone:
"would you have preferred that your level would have been scrapped from the servers sooner or later after the release of LBP2?"
Because that would have been the sure destiny.
Servers have high costs and I don't think neither MM nor Sony would have simply paid to let people with only LBP1 play them.
We all know that this is a business and Sony's and MM's interest is to move LBP2 copies, so like many software houses do, move on, buy the new game or you'll be left out.

Anyway I hope MM will deal with some flaws of the BC with a patch sooner or later, even if LBP2 still needs patches on his own.
But we all have made our mind that the nature of this game is to be imperfect because the code needs to be open, thus it will be always prone to fail somewhere.

I complain a lot about how MM is handling LBP2, but I reckon that having the BC is a great thing even if "still" flawed.

2011-03-21 21:36:00

Author:
OmegaSlayer

Posts: 5112

My question is if we like our old levels do we spend the time importing them and making them even better, or do we leave them broke and leave space for new levels?

Well it doesn't matter much LBP2 rates dont effect LBP1 rates and vice versa and you only free LBP1 space by deleting it. If youwant theres always "LBP1 Only" option ;]

2011-03-22 02:06:00

Author:
Shadowriver

Posts: 3991

http://i0.lbp.me/img/ft/b7043b5cab14f92ec988c4e4cf98b2c26cc9f0c4.jpg
Does it make coffee and french fries?

2011-03-22 08:00:00

Author:
OmegaSlayer

Posts: 5112

http://i0.lbp.me/img/ft/b7043b5cab14f92ec988c4e4cf98b2c26cc9f0c4.jpg
Does it make coffee and french fries?

Don't be silly... no one drinks coffee with fries.

2011-03-22 08:17:00

Author:
Rustbukkit

Posts: 1737

Thanks RTM!!!
You've given me (yet another) thing to moan about

It's only just occurred to me, that I resisted the idea of a LBP sequel (didn't feel it was needed, when an update [even a massive 4gb one] would have been preferable).

And as it turned out - my previously published levels did run like cack (and look like cack - thanks to the lighting changes) on the LBP2 engine - so I had to end up locking them to LBP1 only - so for me at least - there was no reason for BC at all. I don't have the time nor the incliniation to go back and fix newly made errors.

And I think the impact of LBP2 is somewhat lessened, because it is (in essense) no different to LBP1 - just with an expanded toolset (that in all probability could have been applied via an update) - all becuase of their obsession with making LBP2 BC.

In general I am in favour of BC - better to have it than not.
But if it actually affects the quality of the sequel (and you end up having to remake the level in LBP2 anyway) - then I could have lived without it.

Also, I find I'm still using my LBP1 logic brain in order to solve alot of problems - and only once solved do I realise there was a much MUCH simpler way of doing it using the new tools.

2011-03-22 13:23:00

Author:
Macnme

Posts: 1970

Btw did you know about text filter in cool pages and other stuff ;]?
Yes. Did you know the filters don't work when using text search?

So why complain about adding other things?

But is not bad thing and not annoying and still add more possibilities, but people still are in pain. Do anybody complain about PSEye support device that not all people have?
Whether people complain about a new feature is dependant on a handful of factors, but I think the most important is if that new feature adds real functionality to the product. I find it hard to believe that adding Move support is a sincere attempt to improve the functionality of the game unlike camera/sound recording and import/keyboard and mouse support/image import have or would have been.

Furthermore, Move isn't simply a way to add new content like pictures and sound as previous features that required peripheral devices were, no, it's an entirely new way of interacting with the game. This immediately raises concerns for people who want to know how their levels will play differently if someone is using a motion controller instead of a joypad.

You can't place Move in the same catergory as other features that require perphirals due to the above. The same arguments don't apply.

That was not software emulation, if you lurk a little bit you would know that first PS3 models had practicably PS2 hardware built in, later on they removed EE CPU and software mutate (it's still working for PS1 BC) and later on they removed GS GPU which was not emulated so they removed PS2 support complitly. Even so it not does matter how it was done, Sony released in way how in that was and none of developers come to them to ban there game on that BC
That's irrelevant as it doesn't address my question which was whether the comparison is fair. You are comparing bad emulation across differing platforms with two games on the same platform with tweaked engines. I don't believe that ****** emulation necessarily means something is better or that it can be used as an excuse, in contrast to what you said.

2011-03-22 15:12:00

Author:
Ayneh

Posts: 2454

Move ... it's an entirely new way of interacting with the game. This immediately raises concerns for people who want to know how their levels will play differently if someone is using a motion controller instead of a joypad.

There is no reason why this wouldn't be in the hands of the creator. I don't think you really have anything to worry about in that regard

2011-03-22 15:38:00

Author:
rtm223

Posts: 6497

Yes. Did you know the filters don't work when using text search?

Yes, so what?

use Text filter. Besides again lack of this settings in text search is not BC problem and even without BC problem of crap level would return over time and searching would be a pain again

Whether people complain about a new feature is dependant on a handful of factors, but I think the most important is if that new feature adds real functionality to the product. I find it hard to believe that adding Move support is a sincere attempt to improve the functionality of the game unlike camera/sound recording and import/keyboard and mouse support/image import have or would have been.

Furthermore, Move isn't simply a way to add new content like pictures and sound as previous features that required peripheral devices were, no, it's an entirely new way of interacting with the game. This immediately raises concerns for people who want to know how their levels will play differently if someone is using a motion controller instead of a joypad.

You can't place Move in the same catergory as other features that require perphirals due to the above. The same arguments don't apply.

How Move Support not giving real functionality to product? it's gonna be a dream or something or some people simply hate this device so they want to be only a dream, even if it's optional and no body force them to use? iOS had camera support but iPod touch didn't have camera, did this stop developer to make camera apps and did they complain? No. There Move for PS, MM want to give as access to it, it is real functionality, whats wrong with that?

Btw Move can work as pointing device, so it might come with mouse support at least on create

That's irrelevant as it doesn't address my question which was whether the comparison is fair. You are comparing bad emulation across differing platforms with two games on the same platform with tweaked engines. I don't believe that ****** emulation necessarily means something is better or that it can be used as an excuse, in contrast to what you said.

I think you compliantly misunderstood me. Average consumer and developer don't care how BC is done, BC is BC. PS2 games looks uglier on PS3 thats a fact, some don't even run or are bugged. Again, did this made developers to ban there game on PS3 because they look uglier as now some creators react and saying that BC was mistake? Yes, PS3 BC was mistake, since it one of a reasons why PS3 was expensive due fact that they practicably put PS2 hardware in to PS3, but in LBP2 due fact it uses same level structure and creation methods as LBP1 it's cheap, just been didn't been done well.

Does it make coffee and french fries?

It makes survival game more logical ;]

2011-03-22 16:01:00

Author:
Shadowriver

Posts: 3991

Yes. Did you know the filters don't work when using text search?

Yes. Did you know that using the "Filter by Text" option on "Cool Levels" returns (as far as I can tell) the same results that the "Text Search" does?

2011-03-22 16:03:00

Author:
Aya042

Posts: 2870

How many people actually play LBP1 levels from within LBP2?

I know that if I see that little LBP symbol on the level badge - I won't play it from LBP2 - as there is no guarantee that it'll work as intended.

Kind of knocks the whole Back Compatability endeavour into a cocked hat.

2011-03-22 16:21:00

Author:
Macnme

Posts: 1970

Again, did this made developers to ban there game on PS3 because they look uglier?

That's irrelevant. PS2 games were made to make money, whereas we made LBP1 levels for the love of the game. A PS2 game running on PS3 means more copies can be sold - game publishers want BC.

Besides, PS2 developers probably signed away their rights to veto their games running on PS3, much like we poor sods probably signed away our rights to veto our LBP1 levels running on LBP2 (who in their right mind ever reads those EULAs anyway - if I did I'd likely not want to play the game anymore anyway).

2011-03-22 16:25:00

Author:
tameturtle

Posts: 150

How many people actually play LBP1 levels from within LBP2?

I do. I still play some of my favorites from lbp1 in 2 as well.

2011-03-22 16:43:00

Author:
Morgana25

Posts: 5983

(who in their right mind ever reads those EULAs anyway - if I did I'd likely not want to play the game anymore anyway).

when i see long text that needs me to agree before i can use something,
i just push agree as they all more or less say the samething, i always guess
it's something long the lines of (We own all rights to your SOUL!) ...just a guess

How many people actually play LBP1 levels from within LBP2?
Not me, most of them look bad in LBP2, and some don't work anymore to boot,
plus i don't care to play them when levels made by LBP2 are much more fun.
but then again i not had much chance to play LBP2 online lately anyways,
so maybe I'd play some if i had the time.

And I'm surprised this topic is braking out in argument, Seems to me to many LBP
are Drama-Queens, oh wait my bad that just people in general~

*mew

2011-03-22 16:55:00

Author:
Lord-Dreamerz

Posts: 4261

There is no reason why this wouldn't be in the hands of the creator. I don't think you really have anything to worry about in that regard

If you can turn off the ability to use the Move controller then what's the point of even having it... most people would set their levels to be used by joypads presumably. o_O

Yes, so what?

use Text filter. Besides again lack of this settings in text search is not BC problem and even without BC problem of crap level would return over time and searching would be a pain again
Uhm, it's a problem with BC because if it wasn't for BC the LBP1 levels wouldn't even be listed in the search results to begin with.

How Move Support not giving real functionality to product? it's gonna be a dream or something or some people simply hate this device so they want to be only a dream, even if it's optional and no body force them to use? iOS had camera support but iPod touch didn't have camera, did this stop developer to make camera apps and did they complain? No. There Move for PS, MM want to give as access to it, it is real functionality, whats wrong with that?
The reasons why it doesn't add functionality in the same way as camera/microphone does were covered in the previous post. Why continue to use an example of camera support when it isn't analogous to what you're arguing for?

I think you compliantly misunderstood me. Average consumer and developer don't care how BC is done, BC is BC. PS2 games looks uglier on PS3 thats a fact, some don't even run or are bugged. Again, did this made developers to ban there game on PS3 because they look uglier as now some creators react and saying that BC was mistake? Yes, PS3 BC was mistake, since it one of a reasons why PS3 was expensive due fact that they practicably put PS2 hardware in to PS3, but in LBP2 due fact it uses same level structure and creation methods as LBP1 it's cheap, just been didn't been done well.
Oh, well in that case it's obvious. Publishers on LBP aren't the same as software developers who publish through Sony. I don't know the ins and outs of the contracts or licenses those companies are under so I couldn't say whether they'd be able to block content or not.

Yes. Did you know that using the "Filter by Text" option on "Cool Levels" returns (as far as I can tell) the same results that the "Text Search" does?

No, because it isn't part of the text search. Last time I checked the filters only applied to tags and LBP1/LBP2 levels. When did that change or has it always been present?

2011-03-22 17:00:00

Author:
Ayneh

Posts: 2454

When did that change or has it always been present?

I think there's always been a "Filter by Text" option in the "Cool Levels" filter options.

According to the stats there's about 4 million levels, and about 2 million "Cool Levels". It's unclear as to whether the remaining 2 million levels which aren't "Cool" actually exist or not, but I was unable to find a set of search terms which returned different results between the two different methods of text searching.

It's possible that the "4 million levels" statistic also includes levels which were published and then subsequently deleted, in which case searches in "Cool Levels" is actually a search on all levels.

2011-03-22 17:23:00

Author:
Aya042

Posts: 2870

Uhm, it's a problem with BC because if it wasn't for BC the LBP1 levels wouldn't even be listed in the search results to begin with.

Again, problem of crap level would have return over taim and again it's a problem of search function that lack this thing not BC it self.

No, because it isn't part of the text search. Last time I checked the filters only applied to tags and LBP1/LBP2 levels. When did that change or has it always been present?

It always on reatil version, you better check it, it's good

The reasons why it doesn't add functionality in the same way as camera/microphone does were covered in the previous post. Why continue to use an example of camera support when it isn't analogous to what you're arguing for?

Whatever it's still nice feature to LBP have, most reason why people complain about Move DLC because they hate it fell pain just by thinking about it, even if they dont need to buy it and use it, im most cases they don't like motion control to begin with. But if someone have a Move, why block access to it? This always add a new possibilities to do LBP levels. Maybe you don't like but there will be group that will like it.

Take this example, you got Move, you got level with cursor, level force to use pad which is not so great pointing device, why wasting fact that user got Move?

You got LBP2 that have same level structure and only few components are different, why waste 2 year legacy if LBP2 can do LBP1. Why waste server space on dublicates of LBP1 levels if they can be accessed by LBP2 direcly and if someone wants to upgrade, they upgrade. But it's true that MM failed to make it perfect, still majority of levels are playable.

Oh, well in that case it's obvious. Publishers on LBP aren't the same as software developers who publish through Sony. I don't know the ins and outs of the contracts or licenses those companies are under so I couldn't say whether they'd be able to block content or not.

Well you got option that for LBP if LBP1 level is complitly broken, but i dont see point of blocking LBP1 level just because few lights look different, it does not change the fact that level is playable. Even if Ps2 developer could not ban the game, i didn't hear any of them complain. LBP1 level are marked, have different ratings, they dont effect level on LBP1 in anyway, even if they may look different they still playable. Not to mention LBP1 levels are hitting LBP2 cool pages with even 8.0 rate retio. BC is not perfect still somewhat do it's job and it's useful. If MM wanted to make LBP2 very different from LBP1 then why they even considered BC?

2011-03-22 17:28:00

Author:
Shadowriver

Posts: 3991

OK I don't know what everyone here has been smoking/doing with their levels, but I just went and tested some of my levels. Absolutely ZERO issues. They work 100% flawlessly.

You're lucky then. I can't put my finger on any exact one thing that "broke" in my level, but there's a lot of little things that aren't working as they did because of the way the new tools behave. Stupid things like elevators that were being raised and lowered by a pair of winches - now the winches are out of sync somehow, driving them into the elevator shaft whereupon they are destroyed. In fact, I think I had the opposite experience that celsus had - playing the level in LBP2 made some of my pistons just stop working as if they were affected by the 160 hour glitch.

I didn't have any expectations of mm changing the lighting engine to make our old levels look better, it's an unfortunate side effect of an upgraded lighting engine and I think everyone was expecting that things would look different. Like the point made about about PS2 BC in PS3 consoles, I think that gamers playing an older level/game will be forgiving if something doesn't look quite right because they know that they aren't playing a game native to that platform. If a door breaks somewhere and the player can't advance, that's basically a show-stopper.

What I didn't expect was that some of the core tools would start behaving differently in the new game (or rather behaving differently with no option for the old behavior). I assumed that the new tools would be a superset of the older tools with the older tools left the way they were. If I go to work and find out that they've upgraded Maya or Photoshop, I'm usually certain that I can still work on my current projects and have them behave the same, all the while playing with the new tools and features. That's how I expected LBP2 to behave. It's not a huge inconvenience for me to fix things that are broken in my levels, it's more that I feel like we've lost a lot of our best levels because they're not tagged as LBP1 only, or taken down because they're being fixed.

2011-03-22 17:56:00

Author:
Chazprime

Posts: 587

The new engine broke most of my levels, but PLASMAVILLE in particular. It's made that level totally unplayable because there is some hazardized invisible material near the start that is meant to disappear after you jump on all the platforms above it, but in LBP2 it doesn't go away, so every time you try to pass that area you just keep dying and cannot carry on. Apart from that the new hazard effects are just way too much and make it all look awful. Why we can't tone the effects down I have no idea. I can't believe Mm put new hazard effects in that can't be controlled. They also ruin my Sheriff Sack levels because the gas and electric effects are just ridiculous now and there is no way to fix them.

2011-03-22 18:11:00

Author:
mistervista

Posts: 2210

I agree with the point that they should have worked harder with the new features instead of backwards compatibility.

I was thinking the other day how flawed LBP2 is. We were promised much but they didn't deliver. Remember all the gossip about sackbots, how they were the future? They can't go near water, they have trouble switching layers and following.

On terms of the actual levels, I've played many of my old favourites and have been disappointed with them, either with the altered visuals or the gameplay.

2011-03-22 20:34:00

Author:
talbot-trembler

Posts: 1114

Yeah, there are still so many issues (and new issues). I sometimes wonder how frustrating it must be for people that don't come to websites like this one to find ways around glitches, or find out "about" glitches. MM doesn't do a very good job posting about known issues, and work around, or that they are even aware.

For instance, my Jumper level - when you go through the level link, it breaks up the players. So, if you were playing with your friends, you'll have to rejoin them or finish the level alone.

Of course, from being on this forum, I know that it is a thermo issue (even though the thermo is barely about 3/4's. I know I can fix it one day by emitting and destroying areas etc. But how would the average player/creator know this?

That's just one of many issues that I'm sure people are extremely frustrated with. I know sometimes, the loading screens are so bad that I have to end my gameplay with other people - which is a shame for a community based game. The Dive In feature is useless. . .

Well, I guess I could go on for quite some time. Due to lack of actual compatibility, friends I have who want to get LBP1, I try to steer them to LBP2. I just hate to have to explain that anything they create in LBP1 will look very different, and may not function properly - and with so many glitches still persistent, I hesitate to recommend the game at all. I love it - the glitches, etc. are something I've learned to deal with (not happy about it) - but it's hard to introduce a flawed product to friends, no matter how much I love it.

2011-03-23 03:18:00

Author:
CYMBOL

Posts: 1230

2011-03-23 04:26:00

Author:
Shadowriver

Posts: 3991

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