211 replies to this topic

[El Penguin]

XIRUSPHERE, on 22 March 2013 - 12:22 PM, said:

The target demographic argument was started by the folks at EA behind battlefield heroes when they decided to ignore the most passionate part of the community to make some short sighted profit.

Battlefield heroes? I'm surprised you didn't say Battlefield 3 as well. That **** was falsely advertised and was built just for the target audience only, building a game that isn't even battlefield.

Anyway, I'm not sure if anyone brought this up but I'm pretty upset that they didn't make it clear they were going to do this during the funding of the founders program. I thought the focus was to build a true mechwarrior game, not another cash grab. They aren't sticking to what they wanted to build or said they would. I have no idea how this game will turn out in a year now. Could be good and improved... could be ruined with more odd changes. I'm once again turned off to play as much while I wait and see.

[XIRUSPHERE]

MegaBusta, on 22 March 2013 - 12:28 PM, said:

This what I don't get. If they wanted a wider audience why the hell even pick this, other than to sucker punch a lot of people who love the franchise and would love to see it being successful again? It's a niche franchise. Stick to making the niche happy and you get a steady income. Alienate them, and they leave and you get a small spurt in casual players who don't stick around long enough to support the game.

I think this is why Hawken failed. Too dumbed-down for the sim fans, too sim for the "mainstream" audience.

And Blacklight Retribution already does the freeplay CoD experience better anyway. And it has mechs.

Because when founders happened i'm sure they were shocked at the turn out. Now instead of saying hey lets make the game these guys always wanted and were willing to throw so much money behind they made the decision to extract as much return as possible out of the product. All the reasoning behind whats happening boils down to a few simple problems. Greed is the worst of them as these guys got a taste for money when founders happened and are under the false assumption that they can make more revenue out of casuals than die hards. The next biggest issue is mission creep, the guys at PGI have a false sense of confidence when it comes to the demographics of the game and whoever is in control of finances is not only betting but utterly convinced that you can turn battle tech into a f2p cash cow and wants to copy as much as they can from the WOT model.

There is nothing we can do to stop this at the moment with only a few things that might have any impact. The first thing you can do is not give PGI anymore of your money, suspend all transactions and MC purchases and screw there metrics. When the metrics show no sales and they try to get a loan down the road they will be shut out. the only other option is if they choose to wreck the game a large portion of the founders file a class action for false advertising and not delivering the promised product. No arguments or opinions will do anything to the monetary decisions they have made. The only way to change the game at this point is to threaten it's existence.

[Ghogiel]

THAT game you thought MWO was going to be isn't what they are developing.

What happened is that PGI changed the direction of their development, to cater to a different sort of player. So yeah coolant, 3rd person, and more to come. People are going to moan so much about the CW consumables and ammo it's going to be hilarious.

This was set in motion a while ago.

[Comguard]

Gold-Timber Wolf for 11,250 MC, remember my words.

[benth]

Comguard, on 22 March 2013 - 01:11 PM, said:

Gold-Timber Wolf for 11,250 MC, remember my words.

Let's hope we're both wrong.

Recent events point towards us being right, however.

[Roadbeer]

I so happy I got to ask the question that started this thread.

HOORAY FOR ME!

[Forestal]

Fut, on 22 March 2013 - 11:40 AM, said:

Hopefully more people follow this path, and PGI will see that adding "casual" options, and consumables (seriously, the main concern over consumables is that they're ******* magic. Give them some weight, make them take up volume, and allow them to be destroyed.. problems solved. In a game where weight/space is so important, and armor can be adjusted on a 0.1 tonne basis, NOTHING should be 0tonnes and 0crit-space.) will not get them more money than making a Mechwarrior game that's actually Mechwarrior.

I'm more than willing to drop some money into this game (I've thrown money at other games that follow this model. Hell, even BSG-O was able to snag some cash from me - anybody else around here play that game?), and I've come close to doing it a couple times now - but I've resisted. I've stopped myself because I don't like what's being added to this game.

+1.

When I heard about Consumables, Coolant, & MC... I desperately hoped against hope that it would be integrated into the existing gameplay in some sensible way (aka NOT *Magic*)-- make it take up weight & slots like heat-sinks, so that it becomes part of heat-weight-space management: i.e. do I equip more heat-sinks which reduces heat slowly for the whole match, or do I equip more Coolant which flushes heat instantly but only for a few times per match, or mix-n-match both according to my play-style?

But I never made the suggestion because it was pretty apparent that PGI had their minds/plans all made up-- and I was really enjoying MWO pre-March 19th Patch, WITHOUT boating lrms (except when I was trying to understand how lrms worked)... yep, the Coolant (& the *magical* way they work) is one of the reasons I took up the "wait-n-see" approach.

I mean, every other module is essentially a "software" or "electronic" upgrade/component, complex and valuable technology due to their extent of "miniturization"-- but what kind of "software" or "electronic" upgrade/components with neligible weight/space does the job of several tons of heatsinks instantly?!

Edited by Forestal, 22 March 2013 - 09:44 PM.

[Elizander]

While there are things I may not like, I prefer to wait and see how things are implemented and tweaked before getting anywhere near upset or elated. First impressions don't mean as much as the seventh or tenth.

[Iron Hyena]

You know what, im coming to realize something. Most of the people who complain on these forum suck at being understanding.

You suck, because you don't understand.

[FunkyFritter]

I disagree. The primary draw of mechwarrior has always been piloting a giant mech and using it's big guns to blow off pieces of other mechs, that's something that certainly appeals to younger audiences. The current demographic is older because the franchise has had such a sorry showing recently. Most of us are here because we got into battletech years ago. we weren't 40 back then.

Rebooting comic books failed because the new generation doesn't read things on paper, but video games are becoming more prevalent by the day. There are plenty of pitfalls MWO has to avoid in order to succeed, but making changes that reinforce what's really important for the franchise is not one of them.

[Exoth3rmic]

MWO has been advertised heavily all over the place, beta or not, and I'm highly sceptical that the real long term players with an invested interest in the MW franchise haven't already arrived and tried it. The "core" of the community that is already here is by definition, ergo, the MW franchise demographic.

Obviously I want MWO to be a success, I don't mind it catering for "new players" who may be of an age that haven't had the chance to fully get in to a MW title previously or been identified as being within "our" demographic. However, I am concerned that after a certain amount of focus away from those who are already here, and are/have invested, to bring pie in the sky numbers of fresh people to the game the actual MW spirit will be lost or trampled by the accountants.

With the setup for MW as it stands the only real questions of importance that PGI and IGP should build MWO future on is:

a.) Are we making enough sustainable money now?
b.) Can we grow our income on our current user base in the long term to keep our kids fed?
c.) If we cannot make enough money on our current user base, can we use this franchise to do so and, if so, what needs to change about it?

Anything they do in C can impact the number of users already contributing to A and B, as we've seen with P2W and 3rd Person communications debacle.

Exposure of the game via other platforms (like Steam), as was previously mooted and possible soon™ rather than simply ramping up features (prior to CW) would seem to be most efficient way of dealing with all the above problems - you then get instant exposure and access to areas where most of the gaming community has access (and interest).

As you've already got a functional game the players will come, or they won't - and then you have the answer to whether your target demographic is here or can be significantly expanded.

Edited by Exoth3rmic, 23 March 2013 - 12:48 AM.

[Vaan]

On a side track, I don't see how does a 3rd party view can really damage the CW or whatever gameplay style in MWO.. Can anyone tell me?

[Exoth3rmic]

Vaan, on 23 March 2013 - 12:59 AM, said:

On a side track, I don't see how does a 3rd party view can really damage the CW or whatever gameplay style in MWO.. Can anyone tell me?

Other than it being an out-of-sim experience the main competitive concern is the view point being raised to the extent you can see over obstacles which your mech is currently hidden/obscured behind cover.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Vaan, on 23 March 2013 - 12:59 AM, said:

On a side track, I don't see how does a 3rd party view can really damage the CW or whatever gameplay style in MWO.. Can anyone tell me?

http://mwomercs.com/...70#entry2110870

look at this.

[Captain Wolfsburg]

I want to start by saying I understand everyone's concern, so I'm not against any of your objections. In fact, I share the general view that 3rd person is a bad idea.

However, we only have a few inconclusive hints that 3rd person may be coming. We don't know for sure and I don't think we should jump to conclusions on the matter.

Honestly, if they shoe-horn this terrible idea into the game after most of us have said hell no, then I'll be right along with you and I won't drop another cent into this game.

But, it hasn't happened yet, and we don't even know for sure if it will. I vote everyone take a step back, relax, and wait and see what's to come. Don't change your opinion (I'm not changing mine), just don't jump to conclusions until the deed is done.

In the meantime, I don't think they've gone too far outside of the original game model to be pandering to the wrong demographic. I'm an old BT/MW fan and I still enjoy this game, bugs and all. I'm not losing faith (completely anyway) until the phantoms everyone is jumping at become reality.

Edited by A5mod3us, 23 March 2013 - 02:21 AM.

[Chavette]

Comguard, on 22 March 2013 - 01:11 PM, said:

Gold-Timber Wolf for 11,250 MC, remember my words.

I'd buy it even if I had to sell the closest thing to me in my room(whatever that is).

[Tekadept]

Retracted.

Edited by Tekadept, 23 March 2013 - 07:13 AM.

[Exoth3rmic]

A5mod3us, on 23 March 2013 - 02:20 AM, said:

However, we only have a few inconclusive hints that 3rd person may be coming. We don't know for sure and I don't think we should jump to conclusions on the matter.

http://mwomercs.com/...095-3rd-person/

Bryan Ekman, on 21 March 2013 - 03:38 PM, said:

Here are the facts.

• Yes we are currently working on a 3rd person option for MWO.
  
• There is no ETA for when 3rd person will be available.
  
  

Now I suppose you can bend that to mean "we're spending salary implementing it but then we might bin it."

But that isn't what he actually says, means or will do.

Edited by Exoth3rmic, 23 March 2013 - 02:38 AM.

[Corwin Vickers]

Coolant flush doesn't bother me since they are the same as the non MC version. Arty and Airstrikes don't bother me either. In fact, I don't have that much of a problem with P2W either. I think PGI should be making money.

I would expect to pay about $15 a month on the game since that is the standard subscription fee for most games now-adays. At the moment it's probably a little/lot higher than that but that is a different issue. Just know I will pay and I don't think it is wrong to charge.

I do think it is wrong for the free loaders to get so ********* when they choose not to support the game. That being said, I won't be spending any more money on the game till I'm sure it's going in the direction I will want to keep playing.

I do have a serious problem with 3rd person view. It's like if one group could see through walls and another group feels that seeing through walls is not in line with universe. You can't just say "well don't use it!" since it is an overpowering ability.

We already have big flashing bars that tell us we are being shot in the back. Looking around and saying "who the hell is shooting me?" is a part of this game to me. Sneaking up behind assault mechs in a light mech and getting a good number of shots in his backside before he notices me is a part of the game. 3PV would hurt that.


Can't the game be fun and appeal to the "action gamer" without 3PV?

I played the CoDs but I prefer Project Reality. I am 37 and have been playing MW since I was about 12. I don't hate CoD players but I don't want MWO to be CoD, I want it to be Mechwarrior. Does that make me wrong and detrimental to PGI's bottom line?

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Corwin Vickers, on 23 March 2013 - 06:26 AM, said:

I played the CoDs but I prefer Project Reality. I am 37 and have been playing MW since I was about 12. I don't hate CoD players but I don't want MWO to be CoD, I want it to be Mechwarrior. Does that make me wrong and detrimental to PGI's bottom line?

Yes, because you're not that "golden non-existant player base" that they're seeking to attain by driving those of us who want want you want away.