Stone Wall, on 12 October 2016 - 03:30 AM, said:
I don't think so. There is no need to hold back content/Mechs. And there is really no need to have Hero Mechs that are behind a pay wall. Makes little sense. The only way it makes sense is if PGI feared they would be bad at a MW title and needed a way to make money.
Take for example Path of Exile. That is a F2P game. You don't have to pay a dime. The creators are completely against pay2win options or paywall options. They made a ton of money off microtransactions because they put out a superior title. And they put out new content, expansions all the time. You would think with PGI raking in all these "whales," as you guys call them, there would be SO much added to the game. Instead we have the new features of, as you guys call it, "want to buy a Mech pack" of the month. This is a shame when people at Mektek did wonders with MechWarrior 4 for free. The same can be said about what those other guys did with MechWarrior Living Legends. IMO, the creators are spending too much time spending the money and not enough time creating.
If they made a great MW title, they could live off selling cosmetic effects and other items.
"Whales?" "You guys?" I think you're confusing me with the conspiracy theory I was criticizing.
MWO's microtransaction scheme works perfectly well, without any pay to win elements. The Heroes cost money because they're meant to feel unique, and because they have a significant boost to c-bill earnings. Allowing players to pre-purchase a 'mech chassis without seeing it in the field in exchange for early access to that 'mech is also a valid choice - these 'mechs are not designed to be overpowered, though they are untested. So both forms of 'mech sale are honest, above-the-board transactions that yield value to the player without giving them an advantage, and help pay for the game - which is what microtransactions are
for.
Without knowing PGI's gross revenues from microtransactions, outlays for development, and fixed costs, you can't say anything meaningful about how much content ('mechs are content, by the way) we should be getting - speculating as a means of supporting your argument is not ok. It invalidates your argument, and you should not do it. PGI has told us multiple times that there are different programming specialties and resources going into the different areas of game design; specifically, they've pointed out several times that the resources they use to make 'mechs are not fungible with those used to make maps, or design, construct, and test new Faction Play content. So the tacit assumption that PGI is skimping on other aspects of game development in order to produce 'Mech packs doesn't hold up under the light of day - it's totally impractical to re-hire the programmers every time you want new 'mechs, which makes their salaries effectively a fixed cost. Do you want that fixed cost to do nothing, or should PGI be getting something for that expenditure?
And let's talk about Path of Exile, and Mektek. There is a
huge difference between reskinning an old game and updating its multiplayer protocols - or making a Diablo II clone - on the one hand, and manufacturing an entire game yourself (including rewriting and fixing significant portions of the game code.) Now, I'm glad you had fun with the re-release of Mercenaries, but while
this is certainly a well-produced walk down memory lane...https://youtu.be/dILTf7oBuQ8?t=1612I wouldn't quite describe it in a tone of breathless wonder. The technical requirements are far different from MWO, and while MekTek's current project, Heavy Gear Assault, looks promising, it's still in early alpha - and it's not free to play. Similarly, while Path of Exile's interface is basically Diablo II's, expanded with more buttons and a chained-women motif:
... it's obviously not as technically challenging to produce new content for - there's just not as much going on in the game's engine when you're using an isometric format. Beautiful game, mind you - but it's also a fundamentally different kind of game.
Now, I'm not completely happy with PGI's development recently. The Long Tom was a fiasco, and Faction Play continues to be slow and problematic, in my opinion. Yet in the end, the whys and wherefores are simply a way of making sense of the world - our opinions should be based on facts, but in the end what matters is practicality. If I don't find MWO to be fun enough to keep playing, I'll gradually stop playing it and go do something else - PGI's motivations will not and should not factor into that decision. People's arguments about whether PGI is greedy/stupid/diabolical/satan/the lost royal family of Atlantis aren't really about the facts - they're about people feeling right, or justified, clever, or angry.
They can argue for those things, I don't care - I'll agree or disagree as I see it. Just do it with the facts.