135 replies to this topic

[pesco]

I love watching "organized" (league or otherwise) matches. I also agree with the positive comments made about the beneficial effects of "sportsplay" on the overall game. I'd like to see it tied in with the metagame as some have suggested (cf. League of Legends), not detached sandbox-style. In-game VOIP is *not* a requirement, but a proper first-party game recorder would be a great boon.

[IceSerpent]

GaussDragon, on 13 April 2012 - 09:32 AM, said:

Competitive play isn't about the normal matches. I think, presumably, most of us are taking about competitive play that happens outside of the meta-game.

Normal matches actually are competitive, but it's a different kind of competition. I think what you guys are talking about pretty much describes Solaris to the letter and should be implemented as a completely separate game mode with scoreboards, tournaments, challenges, prizes, betting, etc. Kind of like boxing in real life. It's probably a good idea to make it scheduled too - makes more sense for spectators' sport.

[GaussDragon]

IceSerpent, on 13 April 2012 - 09:39 AM, said:

Normal matches actually are competitive, but it's a different kind of competition. I think what you guys are talking about pretty much describes Solaris to the letter and should be implemented as a completely separate game mode with scoreboards, tournaments, challenges, prizes, betting, etc. Kind of like boxing in real life. It's probably a good idea to make it scheduled too - makes more sense for spectators' sport.

I think this discussion is running on two tracks about Solaris, mostly being:

1. Most of us here are using the term "Solaris" to label of a competitive stream of play, not a gameplay format itself (I.E., team destruction, attrition, team battle, no-respawn). Or rather, the spirit of competition.
2. Solaris as an actual format of gameplay. As far as I know, Solaris was only ever an FFA with last man standing. The more learned members of the forums are invited to correct me here since I don't know much about it beyond that.

So I think we should just clarify a bit when we use the term Solaris (Solaris 7). Are we talking about it as label (I.E., to label the overarching competition/league/tournament stream) or as a specific gameplay format (I.E., FFA/no-respawn 1 wave only).

Edited by GaussDragon, 13 April 2012 - 09:50 AM.

[IceSerpent]

GaussDragon, on 13 April 2012 - 09:43 AM, said:

I think this discussion is running on two tracks about Solaris, mostly being:

1. Most of us here are using the term "Solaris" to label of a competitive stream of play, not a gameplay format itself (I.E., team destruction, attrition, team battle, no-respawn). Or rather, the spirit of competition.
2. Solaris as an actual format of gameplay. As far as I know, Solaris was only ever an FFA with last man standing. The more learned members of the forums are invited to correct me here since I don't know much about it beyond that.

So I think we should just clarify a bit when we use the term Solaris (Solaris 7). Are we talking about it as label (I.E., to label the overarching competition/league/tournament stream) or as a specific gameplay format (I.E., FFA/no-respawn 1 wave only).

Agreed. On a side note, Solaris 7 being just FFA comes from MW4. In canon (novels) Solaris matches have more variety - can be team vs. team (of various team sizes), 1v1 challenge, tournament, etc.

[GaussDragon]

IceSerpent, on 13 April 2012 - 09:55 AM, said:

Agreed. On a side note, Solaris 7 being just FFA comes from MW4. In canon (novels) Solaris matches have more variety - can be team vs. team (of various team sizes), 1v1 challenge, tournament, etc.

Ah, good to know. Thank you. Okay then, most of the confusion was mine then haha.

[Helmer]

No reason the Planet Solaris games and THE Solaris VII tournament could not have different types 1L vs. 1L , 2L vs. 2L ,3L vs 3L , Tonnage restrictions , cost restrictions , not just DM but with other win conditions in addition to destruction, etc.

It'll be interesting .




Cheers.

[Ranger207]

Solaris VII would be perfect for MWO E-Sports. Think about it: it's pretty much the E-Sport of the Inner Sphere in-universe, with scheulded tournements, player (or "pilot") rankings, lots of spectators, lots of commentaters... Also, because of the class-orginized arenas, a class 6 'Mech jock could challenge someone in the class 1 non-ranked circiut, while a newbie could start out in the class 2 ranked circuit, then if he wins, move on to the class 3 circuit. It'd be really neat if, after winning, you got prize money for you to spend in the "normal" meta-game. (Of course, unless you placed a bet, you wouldn't get any money for class 1 matches.) The big problem with prize money is the subject of "how did you get here?" If you're a FedSuns house unit assigned to the Periphiry, then you would have to travel across the IS to get to Solaris in the first place.

[SideSt3p]

GaussDragon, on 13 April 2012 - 09:43 AM, said:

I think this discussion is running on two tracks about Solaris, mostly being:

1. Most of us here are using the term "Solaris" to label of a competitive stream of play, not a gameplay format itself (I.E., team destruction, attrition, team battle, no-respawn). Or rather, the spirit of competition.
2. Solaris as an actual format of gameplay. As far as I know, Solaris was only ever an FFA with last man standing. The more learned members of the forums are invited to correct me here since I don't know much about it beyond that.

So I think we should just clarify a bit when we use the term Solaris (Solaris 7). Are we talking about it as label (I.E., to label the overarching competition/league/tournament stream) or as a specific gameplay format (I.E., FFA/no-respawn 1 wave only).

While a "Solaris Style" of gameplay could be included at some point that was not what I was going for. Instead, as earlier mentioned I was thinking more along the lines of League of Legends. In LoL there are two forms of games, Ranked and Normal. Ranked is where you go to be "hardcore". You can queue as a single/duo or entire team. Normal you can go with friends or by yourself, there's no ranking etc.

I honestly think that this type of path is the easiest route for PGI to implement. Since it sounds like it'll be some kind of queing system and all they have to do is mirror it with a match-making system and MMR.

As for just a 1v1 or FFA Solaris style competitive game, I don't think that's such a good idea. It'd be really hectic to watch and not very interesting. Now, if PGI were to make a tournament and have it be 'Solaris VII: Legends are Born" and have a whole set of 4v4 and 12v12 matches that would be sick

[Thorn Hallis]

Actually I would exclude Solaris from MWO, so the meta-game (the core of it all) does not suffer from a lack of players because each and everyone is running around on this one litte planet and plays tournament games. If e-sport takes hold in MWO it should be within the meta-game in some way.

[vam]

Many of the things that you guys have asked for on this thread is in MekTek Studios business plan for Solaris Assault Tech which is a location based E-Sports event based on the BattleTech Universe. Virtual World Entertainment is currently in the patent process on a technology that we believe will really revolutionize BattleTech in location based settings. Location based settings don't neccessarly have to include official BattleTech centers but can also include places like hotels, movie theaters, amusement parks, resturants, bars, casinos, arcades, even air ports. Pretty much anywhere you plan to go outside of your home we plan to bring you competitive arena based mech combat which you can share with your friends and family. You'll even find us in New York's Times Square (if we can make it happen).

If you guys are interested please keep an eye on mektek.net for further announcements. We've had an amazing response from the gaming industry since we showed Solaris Assault Tech at GDC this year and have since been establishing further support for the product.

[eZZip]

Thorn Hallis, on 13 April 2012 - 11:33 AM, said:

If e-sport takes hold in MWO it should be within the meta-game in some way.

I think that would be okay, but only if the metagame doesn't affect the match and the reverse happens.

Ranger207, on 13 April 2012 - 11:00 AM, said:

Think about it: it's pretty much the E-Sport of the Inner Sphere in-universe, with scheulded tournements, player (or "pilot") rankings, lots of spectators, lots of commentaters...

The only acceptable way for this is if the played maps are the same (I might've misinterpreted you here, but you seemed to imply that competitive players should actually compete on arena maps).

Ranger207, on 13 April 2012 - 11:00 AM, said:

The big problem with prize money is the subject of "how did you get here?" If you're a FedSuns house unit assigned to the Periphiry, then you would have to travel across the IS to get to Solaris in the first place.

It's a game, and forcing people to take time to space travel will be an unappreciated waste of time for those of us short on it. When organizing matches, it would only be annoying, not immersive (think if everytime some people wanted to compete in Starcraft 2, they had to go and move one of their ships to the planet their map is located on first).

IceSerpent, on 13 April 2012 - 09:39 AM, said:

Normal matches actually are competitive, but it's a different kind of competition. I think what you guys are talking about pretty much describes Solaris to the letter and should be implemented as a completely separate game mode with scoreboards, tournaments, challenges, prizes, betting, etc. Kind of like boxing in real life. It's probably a good idea to make it scheduled too - makes more sense for spectators' sport.

Normal matches are only competitive in the sense that people want to win, but, assuming random people are put together, they won't put much work into teamwork (proven in so many games, even with better circumstances).

Competitive play should be connected to regular play in most respects, and only changing things for balance reasons/player preferences (sometimes). Making it a separate game mode would be a terrible idea; people want to see how pro teams play against each other on normal maps with similar settings (e.g., weapon stats, not the options menu). If Solaris was included, it should not limit competitive play to Solaris-style matches.

[Sleepy Head]

I hope we don't see what Russ Bullock mentioned happening in MW4; an arms race, where everyone grabs a 100-tonner assault 'mech and loads it with high power beam weapons, racks of LRMs, and uncountable amounts lasers. I also hope popular players are popular for things other than trashing other 'mech but are known for how well they role play. Yes, it would sound wierd if a player was famous for scouting but wouldn't 100-tonner turret fights be boring?

Team work would be nice, too. In Halo E-sport games you see one guy trying to kill as many players as he can. A large collective collaboration of teamwork would make 'mech matches fascinating, and make the the elpful players seem admirable.

[Ranger207]

eZZip, on 13 April 2012 - 03:34 PM, said:

It's a game, and forcing people to take time to space travel will be an unappreciated waste of time for those of us short on it. When organizing matches, it would only be annoying, not immersive (think if everytime some people wanted to compete in Starcraft 2, they had to go and move one of their ships to the planet their map is located on first).

I meant more along the lines of "12th Company of the GDL is gaurding Robinson (for example). Now how did they get to Solaris VII?"
Really more of a role-playing question...

[Belisarius1]

Zerik, on 13 April 2012 - 06:27 AM, said:

This much of your post actually does make it through my thick skull. While I still do not agree with all of it... After reading over it several times I find it to be quite compelling while doing a good job of addressing many of the issues I have with SC2, and for that I will say good job, and thank you for taking the time to post it.
Perhaps it is the case that I jumped the gun in blaming the wrong thing for my issues, and for that I apologize.

That's not a response I ever expect on the internet, I have to say. Thanks.

Zerik, on 13 April 2012 - 06:27 AM, said:

Other than the marked out part, I completely agree with this portion of the post. However, I do feel that should e-sports be introduced into MechWarrior Online through the Solaris arenas, the balancing end of the game should not be on that aspect, but instead the more team based matches; especially the higher end house vs house and mercgroup vs mercgroup instances.

Oh, absolutely. I think here there's some confusion slipping in about what we all mean when we say "Solaris." Posters above me have already addressed this.

Personally I'm using the game world as a convenient in-universe excuse for competitive play, and discarding most of the trappings. Other than the name, I would want Solaris to look exactly like the rest of MWO. It should have the same 'mechs, the same maps, the same weapons, large team sizes and comparable rules. In that respect, its balance would be identical.

In Battletech terms, my vision would be of somewhere the Wolf Spider Battalion, the 1st St Ives Lancers and the Turkina Keshik can match their skills against one another in real combat situations, irrespective of whether those teams would ever actually face each other in the metagame.

EDIT: Oh, and I really don't care how they got there.

Edited by Belisarius†, 13 April 2012 - 05:04 PM.

[SideSt3p]

While role-play is great, I'm not sure it would ever truly fit into a competitive league. Something like that is outside of PGI's realm of influence anyway.

If MWO were to become an E-Sport and then become popular and a big draw at tournaments, the only people who could propel that would be the pros. If they role-played a bit (which will honestly happen...I mean we're fighting in 'Mechs...giant death robots!) then that's how it'll be. I don't think players should be impacted negatively or otherwise though if they choose not to role-play.

Please keep in mind, I'm not bashing on role-play by any means! It's just role-play usually shows up in a more casual setting, in a competitive setting it's about winning. Through the use of superior tactics, decision making, and actions.

Keep up the discussion guy/gals

Edited by SideSt3p, 14 April 2012 - 08:16 AM.

[MagnusEffect]

Got to say it again:

battlemech chess

Battlemech Chess

BATTLEMECH CHESS

(feel free to join in)

(okay not really)

and yes.. it is totally within the lore

Edited by MagnusEffect, 14 April 2012 - 05:50 AM.

[ice trey]

I have to admit, I really don't like hypercompetition in my games, I love the Battletech franchise, but I'm far more interested in the immersion into the franchise.

When the first atlas image was finally unscrambled and I found out our next Mechwarrior game was not to be called "Mechwarrior" or "Mechwarrior 3015", but "Mechwarrior Online", my stomach roiled at the thought: Hypercompetition leaving anyone that doesn't have natural talent and daily practice in the dust; Angry teenagers with microphones spewing garbled obscenities and accusations about other players' sexualities; A broad selection rendered nearly useless as the handful of best optimized designs per the game mechanics get spammed out gratuitously... To be honest, everything they were talking about in the interview about how they felt about the Mechwarrior games in the past is more or less the opposite of what I felt: I played the single player, had some fun with it. Dabbled in the multiplayer for about a half an hour, and then promptly went back to starting a new single player campaign after losing my taste for multiplayer games just a few Pop-tarting Gladiators and no-heat matches later.

Since then, I've just been playing and replaying the single player campaigns for all of the mechwarrior and mechcommander games (Also classic Crescent Hawks titles), wishing I could finally get that RPG/Sim single player Battletech game I'd been craving for over a decade. I don't get my fun from seeing my name at the top of a leader board or being the best of the best of some video game; that really doesn't appeal to me. I'm there for the experience of the universe - the feel of warfare in the 31st century - The same kind of experience you might expect from playing Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and, heck, even the single player campaigns for the Mechwarrior series - especially Mechwarrior 4 Vengeance... However, try to get that point across to these tourney-minded players, and you get this sort of "LRN2PLAYNOOB" response.

But I'm seeing enough reasons to give MWO a chance - Mechanics and stats heavily based on the existing tabletop franchise, A desire to bring the existing canon to life - rather than writing over it wholesale... That said though, if hypercompetition starts to take over the game and I find myself losing so often that my head spins, I'm going to quit while I'm ahead and find other ways to spend my precious few days off, like not deliberately doing something that will put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

Like I said when these forums first started up, I'm still disappointed this game has no single player component, or at the least a PVE component. I would be first in line to pitch a good hundred, maybe two hundred towards a premium single player Battletech-franchise game.

Seriously, MWO guys - get a kickstarter thing going for that.

Edited by ice trey, 14 April 2012 - 06:41 AM.

[Oathmaster]

I personally would love the possiblity for MWO to make an attempt to break into the E-Sports scene being a very competive player myself. It brings more eyes into the game and the E-Sport scene right now is growing quickly with League of Legends, StarCraft 2, and StreetFighter 4/Marvel vs Capcom 3 in the lime light right now, and with Dota 2, CS:GO and Tribes: Ascend on the horizon it looks like it won't be slowing down any time soon I personally feel.

I do though have a few concerns with regards to how to make MWO a good Esports title. Since unlike other popular FPS games, Mechwarrior plays out alot slower. With things like Halo or Counter Strike you hear the crowd going crazy when a player gets a head shot or exciting double/triple kills which with MW mechs can take a heavy beating and you can kind of anticipate when the player is on their last leg and about to be taken out which can suck a little of the excitement out of it.

It would most likely need to be limited to a Lance vs Lance style play I personally feel, for any larger number hurts the potential for lan based tournaments due to costs of travel and such, the most players I have seen in the recent Esport games being 5 players in CS and LoL, and with 1v1 Format you get a more MW 4 method of play where alot of it is about the arms race unless certain rules are applied to help make it exciting and dynamic, while the 4v4 if MWO works as we all hope it will have a use for all the class weights and allow for so many different types of player styles and team tactics within a match.

But what it does have that makes me want to see this game succeed so much in that sense is the meta-game that MWO can make so dynamic through the mech lab, so much varity with electonics, weapon loadouts, speed, armor, on top of what can potentially be down with a properly done team base enviroment just makes me drool constantly . There will be something new on a continual basis, espesally as MWO gets developed more with new mechs, the new tech, and the eventual clan invasion sometime in the future perhaps can keep this game fresh on an almost daily basis.

Edited by Oathmaster, 14 April 2012 - 07:11 AM.

[Helmer]

Oathmaster, on 14 April 2012 - 07:10 AM, said:

I personally would love the possiblity for MWO to make an attempt to break into the E-Sports scene being a very competive player myself. It brings more eyes into the game and the E-Sport scene right now is growing quickly with League of Legends, StarCraft 2, and StreetFighter 4/Marvel vs Capcom 3 in the lime light right now, and with Dota 2, CS:GO and Tribes: Ascend on the horizon it looks like it won't be slowing down any time soon I personally feel.

I do though have a few concerns with regards to how to make MWO a good Esports title. Since unlike other popular FPS games, Mechwarrior plays out alot slower. With things like Halo or Counter Strike you hear the crowd going crazy when a player gets a head shot or exciting double/triple kills which with MW mechs can take a heavy beating and you can kind of anticipate when the player is on their last leg and about to be taken out which can suck a little of the excitement out of it.

It would most likely need to be limited to a Lance vs Lance style play I personally feel, for any larger number hurts the potential for lan based tournaments due to costs of travel and such, the most players I have seen in the recent Esport games being 5 players in CS and LoL, and with 1v1 Format you get a more MW 4 method of play where alot of it is about the arms race unless certain rules are applied to help make it exciting and dynamic, while the 4v4 if MWO works as we all hope it will have a use for all the class weights and allow for so many different types of player styles and team tactics within a match.

But what it does have that makes me want to see this game succeed so much in that sense is the meta-game that MWO can make so dynamic through the mech lab, so much varity with electonics, weapon loadouts, speed, armor, on top of what can potentially be down with a properly done team base enviroment just makes me drool constantly . There will be something new on a continual basis, espesally as MWO gets developed more with new mechs, the new tech, and the eventual clan invasion sometime in the future perhaps can keep this game fresh on an almost daily basis.

I was thinking about that as well. Would 3L vs 3L be too many people and too much info for a spectator to follow? I figured we'd wait and see, but when I created that mock-up Spectator screen I put it down as 2L vs 2L


Cheers..

[Xyph3r]

Mechwarrior as E-Sport? even if it´s "only" the Solaris Tournaments? HELL YEAH!!!! Finally my 5 year-old ESL account would be of some use!!!

3 arguments for Going E-Sport:
- it´s competitive
- there will be units - they equal "Clans" (in terms of Esport, not canon)
-Giant Robots!!! (yeah, this should be first, i know, but best things last^^)