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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Dragon Quest XI for Switch delay due UE4, game based on PS4 version of game, why was announced for Switch so early

My money is on that this is going to get canceled sometime next year altogether



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Nuvendil said:

It is NOT always my conclusion.  There are only 2 devs I give that one to.  Capcom and Square Enix with regards to this one game.  Oh and the team at 2K who brought over WWE.  I'm fully understanding of the issues and I don't expect Switch versions to pop out of the ground.  But this. Is. Ridiculous.

Here's the thing, I work in Unreal Engine 4, I know the kind of issues these updates bring and can tell you 1) no update I've seen has caused crippling issues that would necessitate a long, protracted fixing period, 2) whenever an update does cause a fuss, a follow up that fixes it comes within WEEKS, and 3) I would have heard about the Switch compatibility updates causing any major issues or necessitating big changes and no, they didn't.  Then there's the evidence that this line is BS.  Multiple Unreal Engine 4 games have come over and every dev has said the process of getting the foundations in is pretty painless.  Snake Pass is another prominent example of this.  Square has had dev kits from what we can gather for ages.  Since before the Switch launched.  Studio Wild Card didn't get a dev kit and set Abstraction Games on the port until mere months prior to GDC.  The fact Ark has a presentable build, be it alpha or not, and Dragon Quest XI doesn't even have a *screenshot* is laughable.  And yes, exactly, ARK is a major pain on systems much stronger than the Switch.  So why is Dragon Quest XI, a much cleaner game that is much lighter on the hardware, not even in alpha.  I mean, the way he talks about it it sounds like the Switch version hasn't even started since updating UE4 would be near step 1 so what on earth have they been doing for over 12 months?  Twiddling their thumbs?  

Capcom and Square Enix are like, some of the biggest Japanese publishers around, and coincidentally their games are probably the most requested ones on the Switch. When you consider we're talking about Japanese publishers in particular, saying you only draw that conclusion for two publishers isn't really saying a lot, right? Although really, I wasn't talking about you, not particularly anyways. That's just the narrative that keeps popping up from this forum.

Thank you for replying, by the way. I admit I am a layman and do not know much about the specifics of developing games on certain engines. Is it possible that something in the game causes specific issues that aren't true for other Unreal Engine projects? I do find what you're saying about Ark to be a bit far, though. I mean, my entire point was that the version of Ark on the Switch could already borrow heavily from the mobile phone version, and that the standard of quality might be significantly lower. Ark's problem isn't that it's more technically advanced than Dragon Quest (it probably is in some regards), it's just that it has a history of poor management and stability. So I don't really think there's much of a point in the argument that "it's laughable the Switch version doesn't even have a screenshot" or "some small dev already has their game coming to the system"  because for all we know the reasoning can be that Square Enix doesn't want to release screenshots too early before the game is out. I mean, really, don't a lot of devs wait till a game build is at least *revealed* before they show off screenshots? Again, what is being argued here mostly just seems like a management kind of thing. You do make a good point though, that you would think it is harder to port Ark than it is Dragon Quest. And it probably is, but if the standard of quality is lower and it's based on another version of the game, that might explain why there's such a big difference in release. 

So, what is your theory about why it is taking so long? If I may ask?



UE4 with other games have been ported over in a matter of weeks, this is BS I think to cover a deal made with Sony to delay the Switch version



Then why did you announce it? Oh, that's right. Because you're Square-Enix and you're incompetent about project management.



Nuvendil said:

Meanwhile, at Sudio Wild Card

https://youtu.be/6B6kJm5pOx8

Seriously, this should have been taken care of ages ago.  The UE4 Switch support updates went out over a YEAR AGO.  But here we have a plucky indie dev and their small time porting studio partner beating one of the wealthiest and most influential Japanese publishers to the punch with a game that gives the PS4 and Xbone a run for their money.  

 

This is a display of frankly hilariously sad incompetence.

Yeah, reading that, the only way to interpret it is utter incompetence. Wich is kind of baffling. 

I was wondering if compatibility issues yould really be the reason for the long development cicle, considering that a number of indie devs has reported that unreeal engine 4 ports to the system are extremely likely to get fully running within a week, and rarely take longer than half a year to optimize. By literally all accounts (but the poor people using UE3) the system is easy to port to.

I know this might sound a little tin foil hatty, but I think either they're developing a completely seperate version from the ground up, or they hadn't even started the port by the time they announced it and also didin't start development for some time after announcing it. Otherwise, they either have literally no knowledgable programmers, or they are not letting their knowledgable programmers do their job because giant coorperate culture can be insane on a special level in japan.



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Nuvendil said:

It is NOT always my conclusion.  There are only 2 devs I give that one to.  Capcom and Square Enix with regards to this one game.  Oh and the team at 2K who brought over WWE.  I'm fully understanding of the issues and I don't expect Switch versions to pop out of the ground.  But this. Is. Ridiculous.

Here's the thing, I work in Unreal Engine 4, I know the kind of issues these updates bring and can tell you 1) no update I've seen has caused crippling issues that would necessitate a long, protracted fixing period, 2) whenever an update does cause a fuss, a follow up that fixes it comes within WEEKS, and 3) I would have heard about the Switch compatibility updates causing any major issues or necessitating big changes and no, they didn't.  Then there's the evidence that this line is BS.  Multiple Unreal Engine 4 games have come over and every dev has said the process of getting the foundations in is pretty painless.  Snake Pass is another prominent example of this.  Square has had dev kits from what we can gather for ages.  Since before the Switch launched.  Studio Wild Card didn't get a dev kit and set Abstraction Games on the port until mere months prior to GDC.  The fact Ark has a presentable build, be it alpha or not, and Dragon Quest XI doesn't even have a *screenshot* is laughable.  And yes, exactly, ARK is a major pain on systems much stronger than the Switch.  So why is Dragon Quest XI, a much cleaner game that is much lighter on the hardware, not even in alpha.  I mean, the way he talks about it it sounds like the Switch version hasn't even started since updating UE4 would be near step 1 so what on earth have they been doing for over 12 months?  Twiddling their thumbs?  

You don't even know what customizations the team behind DQXI did for UE4 when developing the game so any comparisons made to other UE4 titles like ARK on an engineering or technical level are moot ... (it miffs me how people in this thread are making the same judgement without such considerations)

DQXI's custom build of UE4 could easily feature more custom code ... 

We are talking about a publisher who has a brigade of engineers/programmers here so why even assume incompetence ?



Well, at least they decided to forgo a simultaneous release in the West, since who knows how long that'd take.



"Dragon Quest XI for Switch delay due to outdated Unreal Engine 4"

*facepalm*
So the reason is they f***ed up by useing a old engine that couldnt support the Switch?

Jebus, and UE supported switch since forever, they shoulda been useing a updated version since then, so all 3 versions could release at the same time..... this is a huge mess up.

 

VGPolyglot said:
Well, at least they decided to forgo a simultaneous release in the West, since who knows how long that'd take.

All the assets ect can probably just be loaded in, and most of the text and fields for stuff.... but theres probably large parts that ll need to be re-coded.
I wouldnt be surprised if you wont be seeing the switch version until atleast 6months after the others.



it should come at no surprise that square enix can't release games on schedule or close to it. unless its some new ip garbage out of left field 



fatslob-:O said:
Nuvendil said:

It is NOT always my conclusion.  There are only 2 devs I give that one to.  Capcom and Square Enix with regards to this one game.  Oh and the team at 2K who brought over WWE.  I'm fully understanding of the issues and I don't expect Switch versions to pop out of the ground.  But this. Is. Ridiculous.

Here's the thing, I work in Unreal Engine 4, I know the kind of issues these updates bring and can tell you 1) no update I've seen has caused crippling issues that would necessitate a long, protracted fixing period, 2) whenever an update does cause a fuss, a follow up that fixes it comes within WEEKS, and 3) I would have heard about the Switch compatibility updates causing any major issues or necessitating big changes and no, they didn't.  Then there's the evidence that this line is BS.  Multiple Unreal Engine 4 games have come over and every dev has said the process of getting the foundations in is pretty painless.  Snake Pass is another prominent example of this.  Square has had dev kits from what we can gather for ages.  Since before the Switch launched.  Studio Wild Card didn't get a dev kit and set Abstraction Games on the port until mere months prior to GDC.  The fact Ark has a presentable build, be it alpha or not, and Dragon Quest XI doesn't even have a *screenshot* is laughable.  And yes, exactly, ARK is a major pain on systems much stronger than the Switch.  So why is Dragon Quest XI, a much cleaner game that is much lighter on the hardware, not even in alpha.  I mean, the way he talks about it it sounds like the Switch version hasn't even started since updating UE4 would be near step 1 so what on earth have they been doing for over 12 months?  Twiddling their thumbs?  

You don't even know what customizations the team behind DQXI did for UE4 when developing the game so any comparisons made to other UE4 titles like ARK on an engineering or technical level are moot ... (it miffs me how people in this thread are making the same judgement without such considerations)

DQXI's custom build of UE4 could easily feature more custom code ... 

We are talking about a publisher who has a brigade of engineers/programmers here so why even assume incompetence ?

It could.  But looking at the game, I highly doubt it.  UE4 has exceptional flexibility in styles out of the box and I'm not seeing anything special here.  And again, I'm not expecting magic.  I'm just expecting *something*.  A screenshot, a trailer, an indication they have actually started work.  

And I assume because there's not much other explanation taking all the other facts without breaking out the tinfoil hats and I don't subscribe to that kind of thinking.  And Square Enix has made plenty of bad decisions, let's not pretend they can't be ridiculously foolish.