5 replies to this topic

[NocturnalBeast]

Freeze the timeline at pre-clan 3050, make the canon factions for that time and focus on CW, this would take the pressure off of development for adding clans at a certain time and allow the game to be balanced and made into the game it was intended to be. Clans and Solaris can always be added at a later time as an expansion.

Make capturing planets and unlocking StarLeague tech as the focus of CW.

[Strum Wealh]

The suggestion in the opening post would be essentially setting the game to the War of 3039.

As it is now, I suspect that players wouldn't be able to access Clan tech until the tail-end of the fourth of the Invasion's five waves (roughly August/September of this year) at the earliest.

What I imagine could happen is that the Clans open up to some Founders-like program at the beginning of the Year of Peace (October 31 of this year) with wholly separate servers from IS games, open up to general players halfway through the YoP (around May of next year), and finally allowing mixed (that is, IS vs Clan) games at the end of the YoP and the beginning of the fifth (and final) wave of the Invasion (late-October/early-November of next year).

Your thoughts?

[Riordan Lionheart]

Yeah I want to have some good old Innersphere faction fighting before the clans come in. I'm afraid if they introduce the clans before the identities and pros/cons of the innersphere factions are properly developed, it will just become Innersphere vs Clans regardless of weather you're a Lyran, Drac, Fed, etc. And if that's the case I might as well go back to Living Legends

[Strum Wealh]

Recall, the game PGI originally wanted to do was set "way back" in 3015.

While a Fourth Succession War (3028-3030) or War of 3039 setting might have been interesting from the standpoint of having more time to develop players' associations with the Successor States (and FRR), too many gamers are too heavily indoctrinated into the "must have Clan tech as early as possible" mentality.

This is not to say that the Clans themselves cannot have fans that like - or even admire - them for reasons outside of their tech superiority.

However, even looking at General Discussion an seeing some players actually admonish others for using anything other than the "optimized" FotM builds with IS tech, one can imagine the combined outcry from the true Clan fans (who want to see their favored factions represented) and the Clan gamers (who want the superior tech now)... and how much more successful (read: profitable) a game with both stands to be for PGI and IGP (and probably Microsoft and/or Catalyst, among others) than one with only one (a pre-Invasion IS game) or the other (a pre-Invasion Clan game).

[Zordicron]

I agree with the sentiment of the OP, but I would also agree with other points above.

the founders style idea is interesting, with the basic extra year of time before clan vs IS.

As this is BETA yet, if it was me, I would actually consider the whole clan thing seperatly from IS yet. What I mean is, release the clans as founders as above, on different servers/matches, but then also with their own maps. make the current IS side totally indvidual from clan, and then work on both and put off the invasion for a good while. 3039 might be a little too far back, but, haveing no invasion right off allows the devs time to develope balance for the clan stuff, for clan vs IS in house, and still allows players to use the clan stuff so filthy clanner scum(I kid, I kid) dont have to wait forever for those Madcats.

Then, CW could be used in IS to beta test, while at first clan stuff would just be like we have now, matchplay. As clan tech is balanced over time, then a slightly tweaked for lore version of CW could be put in for clans, AND THEN finally, when things look good for both sides, full on invasion event begins.

IMO, if clan and CW is rushed, and then later totally overhauled, it could go the way of star wars galaxy, alienating a lot of core playerbase and giving the game a really bad name. I feel slow but sure feature release is good enough, so long as gameplay is steadily enhanced through new mechs/weapons/maps and most importantly

Bugs need to be stomped. All the talk of new player experiance because of game imbalance is silly when you cant make it through an hour or two of playtime without getting DC'd, drop with no HUD or minimap or whatever, or get game crashes. FIX EXISTING BUGS BEFORE ANYTHING, ESPECIALLY CW!

[Gaan Cathal]

Eldagore, on 23 March 2013 - 07:56 PM, said:

Then, CW could be used in IS to beta test, while at first clan stuff would just be like we have now, matchplay. As clan tech is balanced over time, then a slightly tweaked for lore version of CW could be put in for clans, AND THEN finally, when things look good for both sides, full on invasion event begins.

So you think they should have two completely separate games, with different mechs, technology bases and thus different meta. And then throw them together with no beta-period with which to adjust comparative balance?

Sure.