503 replies to this topic

[DukeDublin]

Well here we are; a general discussion forum. I missed general discussion.

The year 2012 marked the beginnings of my modern ‘Mech piloting. Previous experience with MechWarrior titles had my drop bays greased for another stomp through the Inner Sphere, my actuators shaking rust from their idle vigil and my miniature cockpit thermal fan whirring.

Four years have since passed. As an Elite Founder I gave my signal to PGI that yes; MWO is something I want to see. MWO is still something I want to see. Why then are spectators lining up to jeer? Even now as I toy with an inert engine throttle, the scope of our game is still in the making.

“Thinking Man’s Shooter”… has been a catch-all marketing phrase; one I feel fails to identify MechWarrior as a whole. The phrasing of this iconic sentiment speaks volumes of how distanced we are from having a Simulation game, one that emphasises the brand and lore.

Crank out a World Championship, it is a shooter after all… I guess.

‘Mechs stutter and float on steep inclines, collisions lack the grinding of metallic armour, munitions shake the pilot but not the machine…

While the above are personal gripes that sullen my optimism, more definitive failures lie within priority, both from developers and community alike. Ecosystems thrive through coexistence, while competitive in nature there is an identifiable whole. From my own perspective (after being rode through the chaos that was IGP and Nico) – I began to imagine an upward road – Town Hall meetings and roadmaps, I felt secure knowing MWO was being preserved.

But now, returning to view the forums; I feel there is still a general outcry to protect the dream. The sensation is a familiar, rippling fear that MWO will be claimed like other beloved games.

[Thorn Hallis]

When I think about it...I guess it's the failure of FP phase 3 that made PGI go silent. It's probably the first time that the metrics PGI cares about show how hard they failed. I mean, back in the days the forums were full of rants and criticism and "The sky is falling" topics...but there were obviously sufficent people playing and buying stuff to make MWO go on, which put the critics on an island (in PGIs eyes). The metrics must have been fine, so no wonder they never changed course. Maybe Russ truly believed he could do no wrong?

[Black Rabbit of Inle]

Like him or loath him, Jim makes a compelling case for whinging

[SmoothCriminal]

Should we not have a PHX countdown by now?

EDIT: my mistake!

Edited by SmoothCriminal, 08 June 2016 - 02:41 AM.

[jss78]

SmoothCriminal, on 08 June 2016 - 01:00 AM, said:

Should we not have a PHX countdown by now?

A week from now, patch is in two weeks.

[Zolaz]

Well, for full fortress piranha they would have to ban us or give us warning for talking bad about them on the Forums.

[Peter2k]

Andi Nagasia, on 07 June 2016 - 03:54 PM, said:

IS MWO FUN TO PLAY?
even in short Bursts is it fun to play?

If I/we take MWO as it is now and not what we hoped it would be/seeing the potential wasted, then yes
It's fun enough
Stompy robots after all

But here comes the actually important part
Is it fun enough to make regular Makro purchases so they can keep the lights on
50 bucks every month/3 months is nothing to scoff at for a game that's fun enough only for a few matches

I'm content as is, not buying anything any more
And I guess I'm fine enough
Though I put MWO on a break for ~5 months now, only played a single game a few weeks back to get a feel

Not feeling inclined to come back to play
Still the same like in closed beta, only worse in a lot of ways
With only a few mild improvements Here n there, and many things stuck forever being placeholders

It's just not enough
Certainly not enough to make purchases for full priced titles
And they can keep they're random loot boxes
Still 2 years banked premium time, 10k MC
Not feeling doing anything with it, or sinking more cash into MWO

But for free, I guess it's good enough
And I love the IP, that's why I put so much money into it

Good luck convincing anyone who doesn't even know what Mechwarrior or Battletech is to do such big purchases on a game that's scrapes by, by being good enough for free

Even the loot boxes
PGI probably thinking to get those impulse buy from people like in free to play titles on cellphones
Thing is I can't just press my thumb on a button and open a loot box for .50$
I'll have to make a big purchase first
Never gonna work that way
And for those that have big chunks of MC, well we have what we want most likely already anyway


But sure for free, good enough
It's not like I actually need 100 million C-Bill
Wasted so many already
Ehh

Sad about state of things in MWO

[McHoshi]

Now clam down everyone and let them do the work they need to do!

[Bishop Steiner]

McHoshi, on 08 June 2016 - 05:37 AM, said:

Now clam down everyone and let them do the work they need to do!

been waiting on them to start doing that for the better part of four years.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Bishop Steiner, on 08 June 2016 - 06:27 AM, said:

been waiting on them to start doing that for the better part of four years.

With posts like that, it might be time to rethink your signature Bish

[Kin3ticX]

damn, mwo's steamcharts are cratering fast

[Bishop Steiner]

MeiSooHaityu, on 08 June 2016 - 06:28 AM, said:

With posts like that, it might be time to rethink your signature Bish

Why?

Signature's always been ironic.

A title bestowed on me be Reddiots who think anyone who doesn't hate everything PGI all the time, is a White Knight. I've taken PGI to task plenty of times, and am willing to bet have helped effect more (of the limited) changes here by not being a constant raging dbag to Russ, than any of the Black Knights have ever accomplished.

But I always preferred Green, to Black or White, personally.

[stun]

Kin3ticX, on 08 June 2016 - 06:36 AM, said:

damn, mwo's steamcharts are cratering fast

Yeah, hardly even 1k on even at the busiest hours.

[Kin3ticX]

Bishop Steiner, on 08 June 2016 - 06:40 AM, said:

Why?

Signature's always been ironic.

A title bestowed on me be Reddiots who think anyone who doesn't hate everything PGI all the time, is a White Knight. I've taken PGI to task plenty of times, and am willing to bet have helped effect more (of the limited) changes here by not being a constant raging dbag to Russ, than any of the Black Knights have ever accomplished.

But I always preferred Green, to Black or White, personally.

i'd say you are aprox 90% white knight w/ a side of annoying diehard stock mech & lore purism agenda.

Also, enough posts for any 30 of people like me, but these are minor details....

chuckles........

Wait, I do recall you being triggered by concept art, so thats why I subtracted 10%

Edited by Kin3ticX, 08 June 2016 - 06:51 AM.

[WarHippy]

cazidin, on 07 June 2016 - 03:14 PM, said:

Anyone else notice the irony in this thread? PGI doesn't talk to us anymore because of how harsh our criticism can be so we make a thread giving PGI harsh criticism for not talking to us.

I have been saying for years that their silence on things is what breeds a lot of the harshness. If they actually communicated regularly and directly there would be a lot less vitriol. When they make poor decisions without explanation, or when they do rarely make comments that more often than not are really ambiguous people get frustrated and their imaginations run wild. So many times over the years had PGI actually opened up a real dialog with the players that consisted of more than 140 characters they could have saved themselves a lot of grief.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Bishop Steiner, on 08 June 2016 - 06:40 AM, said:

Why?

Signature's always been ironic.

A title bestowed on me be Reddiots who think anyone who doesn't hate everything PGI all the time, is a White Knight. I've taken PGI to task plenty of times, and am willing to bet have helped effect more (of the limited) changes here by not being a constant raging dbag to Russ, than any of the Black Knights have ever accomplished.

But I always preferred Green, to Black or White, personally.

People might not be making that mistake anymore (on Reddit or anywhere else) if you keep it up .

Hey, PGI doesn't make it easy to want to be neutral, fair, or heck even reasonable at times. Can't fault people for being frustrated and wanting to voice it (including myself), but I do think there is a bit too much straight up salt.

Anyway, It's ok. I'll keep calling you the White Knight for Irony's sake.

[Kin3ticX]

Thorn Hallis, on 07 June 2016 - 11:51 PM, said:

When I think about it...I guess it's the failure of FP phase 3 that made PGI go silent. It's probably the first time that the metrics PGI cares about show how hard they failed.

Its probably a combination of things. The steam launch lost momentum really fast. Then there was a large phase 3 patch that is overall a total failure which overshadows anything good about it. Throw in a botched town hall and big hiccups with the 100k tournament.

[Novakaine]

50 50, on 07 June 2016 - 07:37 PM, said:

At the moment, the MWOWC needs to go well and that should rightfully be taking up most of their efforts. that's why we had a three month road map spelling out what is being worked on and what we can expect.
Personally I feel the tournament might have been a little too soon and trying out for the big leagues before we had a decent amateur circuit going. All respect to the MRBC and other player run competitions, but they were player run competitions and not an internally promoted and structured event.
So, we see the first few stumbling steps being made to achieve this and there are a few bumps and turns on the way but it's moving forward. We have to expect that trying to run a competition where over 100 teams have signed up for your first attempt at running the comp has got to be both met with both excitement and 'wtf have we got ourselves into'. So... I expect they are pretty damn busy and worried about making this thing work more than providing a few updates and posts around the internet at the moment.

If I were to suggest a different approach for the tournament then it would be:

• Make Solaris 7.
  
• Make it Innersphere only.
  
• Finish the 4 trial arena maps to use with it.
  
• Add in more maps taking inspiration from the boxed set for settings and atmosphere.
  
• Build it with a lobby system allowing players to organise their own matches.
  
• Have a leaderboard for the players as 1v1, 2v2 and 4v4.
  
• Have it run as a monthly comp.
  
• Let the leaderboard from the monthly comp act as the qualifiers so it deals with itself in game with no need for PGI to manage it.
  
• Then run a world cup once a year with just these qualifying players and teams which is then the PGI eSport event.
  
• If it works well enough, then it could be broken into tiers.

As for Faction Play... there has been a hell of a lot of effort put into this but I feel it is a far bigger beast that what they expected. At the moment it has more of a quick play feel with some movement of borders. I would be quite happy if they left it for now and said: "This was a good start, we have some great elements in the mode but it is not hitting the mark. We are going to revisit many of the aspects and look at making some changes."
To me, Faction Play is our story.
It need to be thought of in grander terms and have a vastly different structure to quick play.
There are plenty of requests for a single player game, PvE, mission and so on.
This is what needs to be done in Faction Play.

There is a lot of work ahead and I hope we see it.

See this is what I'm talking about some damn vision.
Come on PGI get yo stuff together.

[RussianWolf]

Kin3ticX, on 08 June 2016 - 07:06 AM, said:

Its probably a combination of things. The steam launch lost momentum really fast. Then there was a large phase 3 patch that is overall a total failure which overshadows anything good about it. Throw in a botched town hall and big hiccups with the 100k tournament.

I can boil it down to simple terms.

Rushing things out the door before they are ready.

They did it with Open Beta.
They did it with the Launch.
They did it with CW.
They did it with the first tournament.
They did it with the World Championship.
They will do it with Solaris.

The way they should approach things is to get it ready. Then have an unbiased peer look at it and tell them what actually isn't ready for prime time. Revisit that and have a second unbiased peer look at it to see what the first missed. Then and only then would I consider it ready for release.

I'm in business. You know what I do when I prepare a presentation? I have it reviewed by someone else and I fix the mistakes they find. THEN, I have it reviewed by another person to see if there is anything else. I can't imagine going in front of a Board of Directors with the preparation that PGI shows.

[Bishop Steiner]

Kin3ticX, on 08 June 2016 - 06:46 AM, said:

i'd say you are aprox 90% white knight w/ a side of annoying diehard stock mech & lore purism agenda.

Also, enough posts for any 30 of people like me, but these are minor details....

chuckles........

Wait, I do recall you being triggered by concept art, so thats why I subtracted 10%