DaZur, on 16 November 2013 - 08:00 AM, said:
In fairness all, I believe a good portion of our concerns over "depth of game-play" is sour grapes...
It's really easy to build up and have expectations of grandiose battle scenarios and plot twists and turns. The reality is CW is never going to be more than a maybe a number of linked scenarios and singular battles over contested planets and assets.
Much of the driven "story line" we all pine for has already been written... It's kind'a our job to broaden our imaginations and "believe" our battle drops are but a microcosm of our participation in a greater plot (Kind'a like the previous mentioned adventure books)...
You're kidding, right?
I guess part of me doesn't blame you - you don't have the knowledge of modern game and server scripting capabilities... but a little imagination goes a long way.
The breadth of the Battletech universe is immense and can easily be given vast amounts of community warfare with some artistic licenses. Engines like Real Virtuality 3 and 4 support absolutely massive battlefields spanning dozens of kilometers. The scripting for the scenarios is so flexible that people have made what is supposed to be a sort of first-person-shooter/simulator into a RTS game (actually - some of that gameplay has been adopted into the multiplayer modes of the latest installment of ARMA).
Currently - what does your dropship bay amount to? Convenience - purely.
Imagine that there is a set of persistent 'planets' (four-hundred square kilometer map) with dynamic objectives programmed in for various factions. Drop-ships arrive routinely to resupply people on the front lines - defending dropship landing zones nets more effective support for that round while attacking/interrupting a landing successfully will degrade the support received by opponents. The drop-ship bays will be the mechs each player has resupplied for the interval. New players join on the hour.
Objectives can be interrupting mining operations, sabotaging local industry (and the opposite), direct base/facility assaults, etc.
Dropping into "threatened" zones (where an opposing faction is 'winning' - having more forces and more victories) gains more 'faction loyalty bonuses' - whatever those garner.
Sure - that's a far cry from re-enacting single events in the canon - but it at least is a platform for an enjoyable game. Scripting a 'solaris' style system of arenas into the game would be mind-numbingly simple by comparison.
And 16 player games? Try 128+ in a single map.
Honestly - they'd be better off to port the resources of this game over into a mod for ARMA. It'd resolve almost all of their problems that they keep running into with the CryEngine. I'm sure they could work out a deal with Bohemia (who might actually be willing to help them out when it comes to programming issues).
There is plenty that can be done, game-wise, to create more than disconnected sequential death-matches in box canyons. Sure - that's the formula for games like Halo and Call of Duty - but the -infantry- based combat of those games is a little more diverse in its mechanics - and you even get a map editor with some of them (oh, and a story).
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May no mistake... I'm one of a relative handful of members who would love to see a little RPG / Role playing sprinkled into MW:O to give depth and meaning to out drops. That said... I've been around PC gaming far too long to let my self-created expectations leave me sour because I was unrealistic with them.
Don't make me go get some of the early developer chatter regarding what this game was going to be like - or all of the talk of what features were "almost done."
The goals they set for themselves were more than attainable. Mod teams have accomplished similar in the past.
They've lowered their bar - their standards.
I'm sure they are not getting the player response they need to for this game. I don't need numbers and statistics to reveal that. Most of the players I see on the game are all Phoenix package members with quite a few being founders. A fair number of them are likely playing because they have time to kill and they spent money on a game (and may as well not let paid-for time to kill go to waste).
The problem is that this is not a game to write home about. Do you talk to your friends about this game? Do your kids ask you if they can play - and if they do - does the game even give the slightest nod in the direction of the game's deep lore and history?
For Christ's sake - there isn't even a god damned text file giving a brief of the Inner Sphere. There isn't even a description of what the hell it is the game -does-; what a MechWarrior is and his role. There's nothing. They spent more time and money on their ******* studio logo than they did on giving the player a clue as to what the hell was going on.
It's pathetic.
Either out of malice or pure stupidity - their target has never expanded beyond the existing Battletech/MechWarrior enthusiasts. There is, literally, no effort expended to engage new players into the game. Even the game's biggest selling point - customization - is not at all obvious to the new player. The game should draw you in based on the ability to customize - it should tease you with "you, too, can have this bad-*** machine and engage in these awesome battles if you stick around a little bit. You can have them even quicker if you drop a little bit of cash."
It's just poorly designed, all the way around. The only people who are sticking around are those of us who are enthusiasts - and even a number of us have left or been intermittent.
I'm sure there are -some- new players. But not nearly in the number that there needs to be - and not nearly as many as there could/should be. The universe has a lot to offer, and this game is currently not setting a very good example of that.
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In short... CW is going to be what you make it out to be. A lot will depend on how much "make-believe" you guys have left in ya...
Thankfully for me, I'm 46 going on 6... so I'm still having fun.
There's a difference between suspension of reality and pure delusion.
Artists, authors, and game programmers use what is known as the 'suspension of reality' to weave a good story or moment in time into your consciousness. They give your mind enough to play with - they tie a story in with common experiences so well that a man who has never set foot into a rain forest can practically feel the rain soak their clothing.
The difference between that and delusion? A delusion is a complete collapse of reality and an individual is seeing and hearing a world with no common base in reality.
You may see CW as perfectly acceptable in this game. I prefer not to exercise my imagination to the point of delusion.
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