180 replies to this topic

[Steven Dixon]

Just to comment on my take on a few ideas:

• Very expensive visible items: it could work, but that's essentially what the paint schemes are (although they arn't super expensive because they want a lot of people to buy them). They could add in a rediculously expensive paint color or scheme I suppose. they could add more silly things like tophats and monicles as some have suggested but many of the more hardcore BT fans would rage non-stop.
  
• Rented Private Servers: they will most likely do this and they have said that they are strongly considering it they just need to make it financially viable. But the fees for the servers will mostly likely be used to offset the cost of the servers themselves not necessarily as a revenue stream.
  
• Subscription Fees: God No! I hate P2W, but I will still play a P2W game, although if its too extreme I will only play a bit and I won't be active in the community. But I pay very few subscriptions, and if MWO goes subscription I will stop playing even though I really enjoy this game.
  
• Founders Clan Package: I have no problem with this and I might buy it, but it doesn't necessarily make financial sense. The Founders package gave you a much better deal, you not only got a mech (0-4 mechs depending on the level) but you got MCs at a discounted rate and premium time (plus early beta access). They gave all these incentives because it was a bit of a leap of faith. It simply makes more sense to just sell 'Hero Clan Mechs' rather than 'Founder Clan Mechs'. I'm not saying that they won't do it or that it would be a bad idea, I guess you could consider it a package deal or a sale (like their weekend and holiday deals).
  
• Pay-2-Play Tournaments: would be fine, but I'm not sure if its really much of a moneymaker.
  
• Voice Packs: sure, it could work
  
• Decals: they are already working on these
  
• Advanced Options for Replays: no, IMHO these should be free
  
• Lockboxes: they can be very successful, but personally I dislike them. If they did add them I would be a bit unhappy but it wouldn't be a dealbreaker.
  
• Merchandise: they don't own the rights to do merchandise, they license the right to do a video game from Microsoft (which owns the BT video game rights), IIRC Tops owns the rights to the physical merchandise (and Catalyst licenses from them).
  
• Adding a small C-Bill bonus to cockpit items: I could get behind this, I don't know how well cockpit items sell at the moment and if they really need to add an incentive.
  
• Sell MCs for C-Bills: I don't really agree with this, they want you to play the game, that's why the sell bonuses to earning C-Bills but you still have to play. People would probably be less likely to buy hero mechs and premium time if they could simply buy C-Bills. Right now you can do this buy buying and selling mechs but at a very high premium, they could charge just as high of a premium but then very few people would use it anyways.

[aptest]

Tombstoner, on 05 March 2013 - 01:56 PM, said:

Those items detracted from the game. i didn't find them the least bit enjoyable.

if PGI wants my money they need to provide me a reason to give it to them.
if it modifies game play its pay to win. if it makes me more money then its a quality of life benifit
shortening the cash grind for more mechs.

if it was me mechs would have been considerabely cheaper AND a destructible commodity.
but... that's just my quirky logic at work... which is probably bad

[Mr G]

MC for sound effect changes. For example make it so that on your computer whenever you hear srms explode they sound like squeeky toys. Lasers sound like some guy going PEWPEWPEW, machine guns sound like jackhammers, ect.

basically make a large number of alternative sounds that you can buy and switch for the normal ones.

Bumper stickers like "If you can read this, I hate you light mech!", mech "balls", antennas.

Pay MC for an in game sound track/radio.

Pay MC for sound/special effects when you get a kill. Like grunt birthday party and the like in halo games. Only you can see them if you buy and unlock them so they don't show on other peoples screens.

Edited by Mr G, 05 March 2013 - 02:24 PM.

[schlaepf81]

1) Things bought with MC can only be sold for MC
2) Lower the prices?

Edited by schlaepf81, 05 March 2013 - 02:33 PM.

[ObsidianSpectre]

Steven Dixon, on 05 March 2013 - 01:57 PM, said:

J[*]Subscription Fees: God No! I hate P2W, but I will still play a P2W game, although if its too extreme I will only play a bit and I won't be active in the community. But I pay very few subscriptions, and if MWO goes subscription I will stop playing even though I really enjoy this game. [/list]

Just curious, have you spent any money on this game yet? If you're never going to spend money on the game, I wonder how much it really counts.

Not that I disagree with you. I think going to a subscription model would destroy the player-base. I'd pay, because I'm only interested in keeping the playing field level, I'm not trying to avoid giving PGI my monies - I want them to have it. But I don't think enough of the player-base feels the same, and doubt MWO could survive a transition to subscriptions.

[Mystere]

I am, on 05 March 2013 - 01:37 PM, said:

How about "sell MWO to Microsoft"?

Ha! Ha! That's very funny and in more ways than one.

[Kraven Kor]

I would literally pay them money to never add coolant flush (as planned; as an item that takes up weight, crits, etc. would be fine.)

[Weaselball]

Dr Killinger, on 04 March 2013 - 11:02 PM, said:

Re-usable consumables (THAT ARE NO MORE POWERFUL THAN CBILL VERSIONS)

This. A hundred times this.

For 30,000 c-bills you get, lets say, Artillery Module 3, consumed on use.
For 100 MC you get 10 of them. Can only use once per game, but you don't need to repurchase until 10 games.

Or something like this. I wouldnt go with "unlimited" as it kinda negates the whole MC sink, and they need something to constantly generate MC. This wouldn't be too terrible an idea.

[Sable Dove]

1. Make some reasonable effort to balance the game.
I want to buy mechbays, but I can't justify spending money on a game that they are making no effort to balance.

2. Lower the outrageous prices.
I can see spending a few dollars outfitting my mechs. I'm not going to spend 20-30 dollars to paint just a couple mechs. One mech for 15-30 dollars? I can't understand why any sane person would make that deal.

[Weaselball]

Also:

Customizable pilot avatars. Rather than that dude in the cockpit you could customize what you look like (yes, I know you'd only really be able to see the legs and hands... but, now just follow me for a second, what if they let you see your chest too, similar to how games like Mirror's Edge worked.

I think you see where I'm going with this idea. I'll leave the rest to you, gentlemen.

[ObsidianSpectre]

Weaselball, on 05 March 2013 - 02:53 PM, said:

This. A hundred times this.

For 30,000 c-bills you get, lets say, Artillery Module 3, consumed on use.
For 100 MC you get 10 of them. Can only use once per game, but you don't need to repurchase until 10 games.

Or something like this. I wouldnt go with "unlimited" as it kinda negates the whole MC sink, and they need something to constantly generate MC. This wouldn't be too terrible an idea.

I really don't like consumables at all, but I could totally live with something like this. Even if it was unlimited, I'd be alright as long as the C-Bill price per use was small.

Edited by ObsidianSpectre, 05 March 2013 - 02:59 PM.

[Zanathan]

There is a full blown post that was created over 2 years ago with numerous suggestions .. yes in the suggestions forum!

http://mwomercs.com/...r-specifically/

If people actually pay attention to the suggestion forum there are some pretty interesting suggestions. One post which I can no longer find has a lenghthy list of consumable suggestions (this was over 6 months ago) which included coolants. Lots of cool ideas ..

In short I don't think the coolants are bad, I just think making C-Bill and MC variants unequal is a problem. Just make them the same.

[CarnifexMaximus]

If I could create my own mech variant from the ground up and custom tailor the weapon hard points in a balanced way I would throw serious money at that. Example: the muromets is very close to being what I would do if I could make a mech from scratch... 3 energy 3 ballistic hard points. However the distribution of those HPs on the muromets drives me mad. I would take a cataphract with head and center torso containing the energy HPs and The 3 ballistic HPs distributed between the side torsos and 1 arm (and frankly, as a lefty, I would make the arm ballistic a left hand one)

I have been thinking about this for a long time but have been hesitant to put my ideas out in public on these forums, but after the announcement of MC consumables it really does not seem as problematic to me anymore.

Some people also have thrown around the idea of "heroizing" their stock mechs. I'm all for this. My premium time recently ran dry and I was really not enthusiastic about re upping it. I mean, I don't get a "tangible" in game thing for buying premium time. For me allowing players to heroize a owned standard mech provides a competitive alternative to premium time. PGI gets my money and I feel like I get something "more" for giving my money to a game developer. Perhaps the heroized mechs could only net a 20% cbill bonus so they will stay competitive with real hero mechs. Also a nice visual draw to the heroizing could alter the appearance of the mech being heroized. Upon the purchase/application of the heroization the weapons shown on the stock model would change to reflect what you have equipped on that mech. For example: someone runs 2xUAC/5s & 2xAC/2 on a cataphract 4x. The standard model will always show 1 barrel on each arm but if you heroize your 4X the model will reflect the 3 barrel UAC model (as seen on a Dragon 5N or CTF-3D) and a skinny AC/2 barrel that are actually equipped on each arm at the point the player apples the heroization.

I think, for me, The main draw should be alternatives to premium time. The founders program and the hero mechs are great. However, for me, customization has always been king in MechWarrior.

Edited by CarnifexMaximus, 05 March 2013 - 03:19 PM.

[Fajther]

I like the idea of renting a private server.

1. Gift tax. Give a mech or item to a friend. 10% of the price. In mc
2. There is a chess website that lives totally off of charging 10% for betting in one on one matches. 100mc x2= 200 10% is 20 mc for pgi. Have a leader board for people to fight over and let the money palyers kill each other while the rest of us play when ever we want.
3. There is another chess website that has tournaments every half hour. The price to enter these things in 5 cents. They give you 5 cents every time you log in to do a tournament. 40% to the winner 10% to second and third. 40% to the webcite. 300 to 500 people a tournament play these tournaments.

[Jabilo]

Mystere, on 04 March 2013 - 10:46 PM, said:

Full subscription model?

You know what. I wish, I really do.

Life would be so much simpler for us and PGI both.

[Corvus Antaka]

I agree with all of this.

a full subscription model - yes.

[Captain Pee Sheets]

I really like the idea of rentable "server space". Would be fantastic for coordinating matches and group training seshies.

What about some form of randomized item packs purchasable for MC, a la Mass Effect 3? Could start out being only for consumables (assuming the very idea of them hasn't been flamed to death in the last 24 hours), and perhaps later packs could be introduced for things like engines, permanent modules, or even cockpit items and color unlocks? I'd totally spend MC on these, as opposed to now where I only buy additional mech bays (plus a Death's Knell cause it's so cute). :-)

[DocBach]

Maybe a Subscription model where you are required to be a subscribed member to participate in the community warfare aspect of the game, free to play players can play skirmishes like we have currently, but their battles will not have an affect on the state of the in game universe.

[xMEPHISTOx]

Bells and whistles...pfft...the only thing that will get me to put more money into the game than I already have is META GAME as it is the meta game will determine whether or not I will be whole heartedly into the game for the long run. At that time if happy with it I will be more than happy to dump my moneys into MWo, as I did with WoT, but I feel that I have already paid quite a bit for a beta soooo...yeah.

[Steven Dixon]

ObsidianSpectre, on 05 March 2013 - 02:37 PM, said:

Just curious, have you spent any money on this game yet? If you're never going to spend money on the game, I wonder how much it really counts.

Not that I disagree with you. I think going to a subscription model would destroy the player-base. I'd pay, because I'm only interested in keeping the playing field level, I'm not trying to avoid giving PGI my monies - I want them to have it. But I don't think enough of the player-base feels the same, and doubt MWO could survive a transition to subscriptions.

I've spent quite a bit (in addition to my Founder's money), well over $100 and I plan on buying quite a bit more MCs in the future. The difference to me is perspective. With the current model I can buy things and play with them whenever I want, with subscription models I feel compelled to play the game during that time or I'm wasting my money. Often I might just want to play a few games a week when I'm playing something else.

I like knowing that once I buy something I get to keep it and play with it whenever I want. I much prefer to own things than to rent them (and yes I'm aware that you don't actually own online digital goods, its just an illusion, but that's good enough for me). I have no real problem with subscription games in general but they have to be really deep and even then I usually only play them for a few months at most.

For example with the new paint system, I've purchased a ton of colors because I can now play with those colors as often as I want whenever I want, I like that.