44 replies to this topic

[l33tworks]

Ok so I have noticed a trend other people (including PGI) have noticed, which has picked up a lot of exposure lately, and that is that new players starting to play and leaving almost immediately.


We have seen some knee jerk movement from PGI about what to do about it like the new controls, custom build trial mechs etc, testing ground etc,

I have also seen discussion on the forums that the main reason for this is lack of community interaction, such as out of game chat, guilds, help for new players etc.

Even as an experienced MWO player, I have always felt the game is too cold because of the lack of PUBLIC community interaction, so yes this is a especially HUGE issue for new players.

Sure the devs can incorporate public pre-game chat, guilds, CW. But lets get real this is Astronomically harder than a simple thing PGI have as usual misinterpreted the influence of.....
.....
PUBLIC and IN-GAME VOIP

This should have been on the top of the priorities from day one. It never was, and still isn't. Its a damn good blanket cure to all of MWO current problems and always has been IMO.

The sad part is PGI and some players don't see this and have the wrong idea about voip will do to the game. Its a pandoras box that it will transform the game. Its NOT just about co-ordinating attacks in game. In fact 90% of it will be banter. And thats whats good. I can honestly say I have 50x more fun playing over teamspeak than just plain MWO and its not for strategic reasons.

I want there to be that guy that flies of toward the enemy in a spider at the start of the round playing highway to the danger zone.

As for easing the learning curve of new players, after a new player dies pitifully, and after all the laughing, somebody, WILL tell them quickly and easily what they did wrong over voice, they can hold tab, Click on a + next to their name, befriend them and suddenly the learning curve is a small step, instead of the new player silently looking at a burning wreck and hitting alt +f4 never to play again as is the case currently.

Here's PGIs view of voip. They said most people in a group would be using 3rd party voip anyway so its not that important to have their own in game voip. Wrong. Even for strategic reasons, When using 3rd party voip, Unless you know the people intimately you have no idea who is speaking and from where and from what mech. They have to tell you.

A little speaker icon above a mech and on the minimap when that person speaks is miles ahead of any 3rd party voip.


They are also looking at making commands similar to tribes ... This is completely the wrong idea about what will make this game game fun to play.


Why don't the devs grasp such basic things as what makes games fun...

So to sum up,

1. In Game- VOIP
2. Hold TAB for scoreboard, a "+" to add that player to friends, A microphone with a slash through it to mute them.
3. Profit???????

Edited by l33tworks, 24 March 2013 - 04:23 AM.

[ciller]

This game is NOT meant for the casual gamer. PGI/IGP's efforts to make it so will only hurt them.

Any serious gamer already has and uses vent/teamspeak and is already in a guild making in game VOIP less important then OP claims.

But yeah, in-game VOIP with mute options would be great.

[Chemie]

What is funy is that they "started" to implement VOIP way back in August CB but then lost interest or abandoned C3. First implementation was poor since you had to get an invite to join the channel but the assumption was they would quickly add the invite to all those the MM put on same team. never happened. No idea why as this is a basic functionality for a team game.

[Murku]

ciller, on 24 March 2013 - 04:33 AM, said:

This game is NOT meant for the casual gamer. PGI/IGP's efforts to make it so will only hurt them.

Any serious gamer already has and uses vent/teamspeak and is already in a guild making in game VOIP less important then OP claims.

But yeah, in-game VOIP with mute options would be great.

If this game is not intended for the casual player then unless we are all willing to pony up a LOT of money frequently it's doomed.

True story.

[Belorion]

In game voip while it seems like it would be a good concept usually ends up not being used by a large number of the player base. Coordinated groups run their own voip, and people really don't want to hear the other players in pugs.

[Joseph Mallan]

Chemie, on 24 March 2013 - 04:43 AM, said:

What is funy is that they "started" to implement VOIP way back in August CB but then lost interest or abandoned C3. First implementation was poor since you had to get an invite to join the channel but the assumption was they would quickly add the invite to all those the MM put on same team. never happened. No idea why as this is a basic functionality for a team game.

Cause most players that are using VOiP are already on a service, and not enough people were using C3 I would assume.

[Moromillas]

Will not magically fix anything.

[l33tworks]

Belorion, on 24 March 2013 - 04:49 AM, said:

In game voip while it seems like it would be a good concept usually ends up not being used by a large number of the player base. Coordinated groups run their own voip, and people really don't want to hear the other players in pugs.

Not unless PGI do something silly like disable it by default. If they have it enabled by default and you have to manually turn it off or mute players one by one, I'd say 90%+ will be listening to you speak. Even people that just jump into the game not knowing it has a voice will hit the mic key if they have one.

Counter strike was a very clan driven game but 99% of the public games I played in everyone was chatting and having a good time. Even the completely stoned guys that had no idea how computers work were on voice.

You jump in a match from a fresh installation and the second it loads up you hear people so you want to talk back. Thats how it should be.

You cant compare clan behavior to public games.

Edited by l33tworks, 24 March 2013 - 04:56 AM.

[Belorion]

l33tworks, on 24 March 2013 - 04:55 AM, said:

Not unless PGI do something silly like disable it by default. If they have it enabled by default and you have to manually turn it off or mute players one by one, I'd say 90%+ will be listening to you speak. Even people that just jump into the game not knowing it has a voice will hit the mic key if they have one.

It would almost certainly have to be disabled by default. You would have to set it up, enable it, and have it currently turned on to be able to use it. Many computers don't have mics so it isn't even an option to a large portion of the potential player base.

In addition there are players like me who don't want to hear what 90% of the player base want to say.

ETA: Presumably the preset up voice was for X-Box with counter strike. Something like this is a lot more feasible with a console game than it is with a PC game. The benefit of developing for the console is that you only have to develop for a limited set of hardware and configurations. This isn't true for the PC world.

Edited by Belorion, 24 March 2013 - 05:22 AM.

[StalaggtIKE]

ciller, on 24 March 2013 - 04:33 AM, said:

This game is NOT meant for the casual gamer. PGI/IGP's efforts to make it so will only hurt them.

Any serious gamer already has and uses vent/teamspeak and is already in a guild making in game VOIP less important then OP claims.

But yeah, in-game VOIP with mute options would be great.

THIS. This attitude has the biggest risk of accelerating the failure of MWO, elitism. So a gamer isn't serious unless he has 3rd party software, a mic and in a guild? Well, I sure need to cut back on my time, tears and money invested here. A steady stream of "common" gamers, what's going to keep MWO afloat. Sever that line and you've started the doomsday countdown. Traditionally, MW is not a casual game and it does not have to be. However, there must be effort in easing the casuals into the game. I do not think in-game VOIP would help unless it is enabled by default.

[Vrekgar]

StalaggtIKE, on 24 March 2013 - 05:57 AM, said:

THIS. This attitude has the biggest risk of accelerating the failure of MWO, elitism. So a gamer isn't serious unless he has 3rd party software, a mic and in a guild? Well, I sure need to cut back on my time, tears and money invested here. A steady stream of "common" gamers, what's going to keep MWO afloat. Sever that line and you've started the doomsday countdown. Traditionally, MW is not a casual game and it does not have to be. However, there must be effort in easing the casuals into the game. I do not think in-game VOIP would help unless it is enabled by default.

Imagine that on continuous repeat. EVERY SINGLE GAME THAT HAS IN GAME VOIP HAS.

The number of times an in game solution has actually contributed to helping people is miniscule. As the devs said in the last ASK thread, "Most players play in a group anyway." They probably are using 3rd party voice apps too.

I should know, I run with a group that routinely has 50+ people most of the time and we are all using a 3rd party voice app.

[Murku]

Default on vs default off:

Pro Default on, because we want people it have fun and instantly feel part of a community. We want this to be already enabled for them, without additional effort on their part.

But, but Default off! If default on bugs people it will be either because they are a pro gamer who has made other arrangements or a newer player realizing he doesn't like the chatter. In both instances they are a player who has been around for a few more games and has the experience needed to open Options and tick a box.

[PhDGreg]

Definitely agree that having in-game, default-on VoIP would be a significant boon to game and community.

At the moment, the game has no sense of community - You drop into a random match with random people who you may or may not meet again, and 90% of matches involve less than 5 lines of talk aside from "glhf" and "gg".

Sure - the forums have a sense of community (albeit one that sometimes makes me want to punch people...). TeamSpeak servers have a sense of community. But you need to actively seek those out.

In most online FPSs you'll at least have local servers that you play on and get to know the names of people, the nuances of the server, etc. MWO doesn't even have that, really...

In game VoIP won't fix all the issues, but it definitely won't hurt.

[MadPanda]

Every single team game that I've played has had voip default On. That's the only way to do it. There is no reason to argue about it as no sane developer will put it Off by default. As for the fears of someone blasting some crap through their mic, there is always a mute button that is just one click away next to the person. Where exactly the mute button is, well that's up to the UI designes of PGI but there is one and it's easy to use to mute those who are distrubtive.

[StalaggtIKE]

@ Vrekgar: Those new controls from the last patch were atrocious! But the devs realized they had to be default for new players to benefit. As for in-game VOIP, mute would need to be readily accessible.

Murku, on 24 March 2013 - 06:26 AM, said:

Default on vs default off:

Pro Default on, because we want people it have fun and instantly feel part of a community. We want this to be already enabled for them, without additional effort on their part.

But, but Default off! If default on bugs people it will be either because they are a pro gamer who has made other arrangements or a newer player realizing he doesn't like the chatter. In both instances they are a player who has been around for a few more games and has the experience needed to open Options and tick a box.

Exactly. It took me no time to go WTF! Go into default and fix my controls. A new player would not have gone into options to turn on arm-lock.

Edited by StalaggtIKE, 24 March 2013 - 06:43 AM.

[SilentSooYun]

Even without VOIP (which should be an absolute priority anyways), just making a public text-chat lobby where you can meet people, ask questions, and join "dropships" would go a long way towards new player retention. Also, a tutorial mode in an absolute must.

Most people wanting to try this game will not check the forums first. They just want to jump in and stomp around in a giant robot... which gets them killed instantly, again and again, and they quit out of frustration. Without any interaction, they won't know what they're doing wrong, they just assume the game is broken and leave. Forums are nice, but hardly real-time; they want feedback and they need it immediately, not "come back tomorrow and maybe someone will have answered".

[Barbaric Soul]

While I'm all for keeping the new blood playing, I can't say I'm in favour of a integrated VOIP. I've played plenty of games with VOIP, and always ended up turning it off for various reasons.

[StandingInFire]

While in theory this sounds good, in practice it is not.

1) Some people don't have in game sounds on / or have them really low / or are deaf.
2) Some people don't have mics.
3) The obvious abuse cases.
4) People who have it off and people who have it on wont be communicating effectively.

The voice commands help circumvent this problem by being able to also type the text of that command in chat (to ensure all players can see it), while also being much harder to abuse (can put a max command/time period to prevent spamming).

People can still feel part of the community just from text chat messaging which the devs acknowledge currently needs to be improved as it is very basic at this time.

[MadPanda]

StandingInFire, on 24 March 2013 - 06:53 AM, said:

While in theory this sounds good, in practice it is not.

1) Some people don't have in game sounds on / or have them really low / or are deaf.
2) Some people don't have mics.
3) The obvious abuse cases.
4) People who have it off and people who have it on wont be communicating effectively.

The voice commands help circumvent this problem by being able to also type the text of that command in chat (to ensure all players can see it), while also being much harder to abuse (can put a max command/time period to prevent spamming).

People can still feel part of the community just from text chat messaging which the devs acknowledge currently needs to be improved as it is very basic at this time.

People like you amaze me, or more so that I can't understand how you are thinking. Why are you using some bad case as an argument not to have a system that could help a lot of people? Let's take an example from real life and use your logic against it. Public transportation; some people have their own car so they won't use it, other's don't have money to buy a ticket and some don't live nearby a bus stop, so let's scrap this stupid idea of public transport because some people can't/won't use it. Right? Makes sense to you? I really don't understand your kind....

[Chemie]

Joseph Mallan, on 24 March 2013 - 04:51 AM, said:

Cause most players that are using VOiP are already on a service, and not enough people were using C3 I would assume.

I did not say that. Op was was about NEW players and your statement does not apply for that,