Jestun, on 05 September 2013 - 08:07 AM, said:
Perhaps you could highlight an actual lie rather than making vague references?
Gladly.
Quote
"The latest iteration of Mechwarrior was crowdfunded (without Kickstarter) as a free-to-play first-person mech simulator. However, despite promises to the founders, the game has been shifted to a third-person arcade shooter and now the community is rioting. This followed a series of other unpopular decisions; the developers decided to sell an item for real money that had a significant impact on gameplay, crossing the line separating cosmetic/convenience items and 'pay-to-win.' Then they added a confusing game mechanic to limit its use, which had the unfortunate side effect of making some strategies completely useless. From the article: 'PGI’s community practices showcase a fundamental misunderstanding of both freemium development and community management. The developer has never had to deal with such a large player base before, and it has never had to deal with the strains of continuous development before. Rather, PGI seems to be handling Mechwarrior Online in much the same way they might a AAA game: by keeping quiet and only discussing its work in vague terms. ...Mechwarrior Online’s road to launch is a cautionary consumer tale, fraught with anger and betrayal. It shows how a company can take a fan base dedicated to an old IP and completely alienate it through lack of communication, unpopular features, and oathbreaking. It shows how players need to be cautious of supporting a project based solely on the IP backing it.'"
So... let's take these on one at a time.
crowdfunded: This one in particular is interesting. Those who bought into Founders got exactly what they paid for- closed beta access, premium time, MC, and mechs, depending on their tier. What was promised was delivered (except for the name in the credits thing, that's unreleased so far.) The "crowdfunded" word's been tossed around a few times by PGI and outside sources, but from my recollection a good deal of money taken from that went to IGP's other projects, and IGP themselves are the ones who funded the game. We're just assisting in keeping it alive. I'll admit that this point is contentious, but it's my view on it- the point is, it's not really "fact" worthy.
Third person arcade shooter: MechAssault was a third person arcade shooter. MWO is a primarily first person game with a gimped and buggy 3PV mode that handles like the other Mechwarrior games so far. My play style has not changed much since I started back in closed beta, and I haven't so much as touched the "arcade shooter" mechanics, nor have I seen others use them much. In fact, those aspects are all completely optional- throttle decay, 3PV, arm lock... you can turn all of it off and play as if it weren't even there.
sell an item for real money that had a significant impact on gameplay/pay-to-win: I'll address both of these at the same time, if you don't mind. There are certain things in the game you can only get with real money- and none of them will make you a better pilot. In fact, you can get consumables just as useful as the MC ones through C-bills and experience points. Most of them aren't all that useful in the first place, but the poster was referring to the coolant flush. In its limited state, it's useful but hardly game changing, and anyone can access its more potent form. For other things you can buy, like Mechs themselves, sure, you can get hero and champion mechs- that aren't stronger than the regular version, they just boost your end-of-match rewards and come in pretty colors. As someone who's paid a fair bit, I don't do a whole lot of winning... since this game is still about skill.
keeping quiet and only discussing its work in vague terms: I'll admit PGI needs to work on its communication, but historically they've been pretty good about telling us their plan and direction for the game. The problem most people take is that the plan can change without notice sometimes. Once again you could argue this one way or another, but just because they don't hand us their planned XML sheet every time they think about changing a number doesn't mean they're not communicating their intentions. Please see the most recent posts by the team and Ask The Developers for more information.
In addition, check out the slashdot comments themselves. There's some interesting discussion there.
Edited by Aerokii, 05 September 2013 - 08:37 AM.
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