37 replies to this topic

[tuokaerf]

So this little thread is a bit of a response to some of the posts here. Seems to be a lot of discontent around why feature X isn't here NOW and that PGI is bilking you for not having it NOW. While I understand the human nature to want all immediately, blaming PGI for being scam artists is a bit ridiculous when you break things down. Not trying to start any troll wars with this, just trying to post some reasonable points (and before the apologist posts start, there are things I want fixed in the game and have commented on them before. This isn't a free pass, it's reality).

So I decided to take a look back at some timelines to help set some proper expectations for you.

According to Dev Blog 0, PGI has been working on the MechWarrior IP for some time. Originally planned as a console/PC title, it evolved into F2P MW:O with IGP sometime in the winter months of 2011, and seems like a deal and funding was secured sometime around April of 2011.

I would assume actual development work on this game as it is today did not start at that point. Some time would have been taken to:

- Hire staff
- Start heavy research into Battletech
- Develop gameplay concepts
- Develop concepts for Mechs
- Develop concepts for in-game assets (controls, UI, etc)
- Develop concepts for maps
- Proof of concept netcode/multiplayer
- Choose a game engine
- Make really rough estimates of cost + time

This is all standard standup work for a project. Not sure how long this all took until they had a functioning alpha, but from the Closed Beta announcement on May 25th, 2012 let's assume 6 months of R&D and 6 months of actual implementation to get basic gameplay and a few mechs.

You can take a few different routes from here. You can have a small closed beta to test some game play proof of concepts and gain initial feedback while developing out the rest of the game (such as, CW). After a year or two of this, you can go Open Beta and shortly after full release. I'd expect around 3 years for this to occur from date of basic gameplay availability as this has been the norm from other titles.

Or you can do what seems like PGI is doing, focusing on having a really good core gameplay model (Mechs stomping other Mechs) with a large field of data to play with (lots of players). In this way, PGI can have a stable and vetted gameplay system and add additional features as time allows, instead of massive re-balancing and re-working at the wrong times, such as launch.

So fast forward a bit, and Open Beta launched on October 29th, 2012 (If I'm wrong on the specific date, it's within a few weeks). Some may argue they went open beta too soon, but from Russ' post, they needed more info and more players.

From their timelines stated at the developer's conference this week, large pieces of content will be coming in around a year after closed beta. Even if it pushes to September of 2013, we're still only 1 1/2 years of full on functional development work which is quite impressive considering the size of the team involved compared to other development shops attempting a similar timeline.

I know they have adjusted some development timelines and expected feature release dates. This happens in development work on a daily basis. Read more about it here. Priorities change as well, usually due to data you're not privy to.

So for those of you who feel that their development timelines are bogus to this date, can you offer any suggestions on how or when the time to have done any of the announced coming features would have been done?

EDIT: Corrected a timeframe as pointed out by Hawkeye 72.

Edited by tuokaerf, 29 March 2013 - 10:20 AM.

[Hawkeye 72]

tuokaerf, on 29 March 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

September of 2013, we're still only 2 1/2 years of full on development work

Less than that actually...closer to a year and a half by September of 2013

Garth Erlam, on 27 March 2013 - 09:47 AM, said:

The game is also BARELY OVER A YEAR OLD from first line of code, so please, understand we can't snap our fingers and be a year ahead.

[tuokaerf]

Oh nice, I missed that. Thanks!

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Op... I don't think you've been involved from the start of this project like some of us have been.

I don't think you've seen all the broken Promises, missed deadlines, and flat out lies by the company.

And I don't think you understand that all of us with a founders badge, were mislead into thinking the money we were paying was going towards development of this game, when in fact that money went to Mechwarrior:Tactics and a DOTA clone.

I don't think you're aware that many of us who were involved in the closed beta, pushed for them to extend closed beta well into feburary, when they instead launched Open Beta much too early. [be thankful we forced them to reconsider and push the date back by a week at least.]

I don't think you're aware that PGI has flat out decided to go against their devlopment pillars as stated in early dev blogs and are changing the game in a way that betrays the original intentions.

And I don't think you're aware that we should be in the middle of Community Warfare right now... we were supposed to have DX11 by open beta, and that PGI says it has to spend multi thousands of dollars to make a single map and a single mech. When modding groups make multiple quality maps in under a month and for a fraction of the cost.

When you get news from the developers saying that it costs them $60,000-70,000 approximately to make a mech, and $250,000 to make a map, you start to question the the competence of the developers in question when mod groups in their spare time make these things to a better standard than PGI does and for well under that pricetag!

OP I've looked at your profile and seen how long you've been around, but I think you were kept in the dark about a lot of things during closed beta thanks to the NDA and the like. I don't think you understand how broken the long time playerbase feels at this rate.

And it's not like I'm expecting them to make this game for free, or not expect people to pay for it, the game is decent at this point, but it's not what it could have been, nor what it should be right now. And having been involved since the 2nd wave of closed beta invites... It hurts to see how much they have promised that's simply been ignored and overlooked.

[superbob]

tuokaerf, on 29 March 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

...

That said, they're still guilty of failing to deliver as promised, and failing to go about that with any degree of honesty, at least around the time of open beta start, when there was much confusion as to why CW wasn't here yet. Posts were deleted and content was silently removed, as it became clear that stuff won't code itself.

Communication has improved since then, and since there are no more dates announced with any certainty, there's been far less disappointments lately.

Nowadays it's more of a problem with devs not listening to the forum community, rather than how much development is behind the original schedule. The prime example being the recurring third-person-view tease, which seems to enrage the forum audience like nothing else.

Many who bought founders' packages are legitimately angry about how PGI defaulted on some of their initial promises, primarily how slow the development is compared to what was promised. You can't blame founders for believing them completely back when they bought their packages.

Which is not me, BTW. I don't mind devs taking their time, as long as they get it right eventually. I just hope that the finished product, at the end of open beta, will at least be close to what was initially promised.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

superbob, on 29 March 2013 - 11:19 AM, said:

That said, they're still guilty of failing to deliver as promised, and failing to go about that with any degree of honesty, at least around the time of open beta start, when there was much confusion as to why CW wasn't here yet. Posts were deleted and content was silently removed, as it became clear that stuff won't code itself.

Communication has improved since then, and since there are no more dates announced with any certainty, there's been far less disappointments lately.

Nowadays it's more of a problem with devs not listening to the forum community, rather than how much development is behind the original schedule. The prime example being the recurring third-person-view tease, which seems to enrage the forum audience like nothing else.

Many who bought founders' packages are legitimately angry about how PGI defaulted on some of their initial promises, primarily how slow the development is compared to what was promised. You can't blame founders for believing them completely back when they bought their packages.

Which is not me, BTW. I don't mind devs taking their time, as long as they get it right eventually. I just hope that the finished product, at the end of open beta, will at least be close to what was initially promised.

One thing I keep forgetting to add... Those of us who have a Legendary Founders Badge... we actually have yet to receive all that we were promised. We're still missing one thing we were promised in the package. As Mechwarrior:Online, currently does not have credits.

[keith]

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

When you get news from the developers saying that it costs them $60,000-70,000 approximately to make a mech, and $250,000 to make a map, you start to question the the competence of the developers in question when mod groups in their spare time make these things to a better standard than PGI does and for well under that pricetag!

think i'm a bit late, but when did they quote numbers? $250,000 bucks to make god awful river city.... hope they fired that map maker after that. if i was head of pgi i would have.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

One thing I keep forgetting to add... Those of us who have a Legendary Founders Badge... we actually have yet to receive all that we were promised. We're still missing one thing we were promised in the package. As Mechwarrior:Online, currently does not have credits.

You know, you keep opening yourself up for a big liable suit with those statements, including the one about the Founder's money being used for things other then MWO. Credits ARE in the game, they are called MC..or did you miss that? I'll bet you used them too didn't you, so you know full well that they exist in the game.

I'm guessing that this is your first REAL beta test of a software package. See, it takes time to do what PGI has stated they'll do, it doesn't happen in days or weeks, it takes months and years. If you'd ever actually done real beta testing you'd be aware of this. This isn't the BF3 beta test, that was just a demo of the game to get people hyped for the release and buy it up, which they did in huge numbers despite how buggy and hacked to hell and back it was. You know how you can tell a so called 'beta test' from a REAL beta test? There's no list of known bugs that have been fixed in the final release in a REAL beta test...which is exactly what the BF3 'beta test' had in it's files..a list of known bugs, all stated to have been fixed in the final release, which, as it just so happens, was ready BEFORE the BF3 'beta test' was put out.

THIS is a real beta, features aren't even IN the game yet, much less issues like balance and all the assets, the netcode is still a work in progress and so on. I know, I know...you are used to those 'beta tests' you've been playing for the past decade almost now, demos released as 'betas', so you really don't know any better.

So do us, and yourself, a favor Jade, go read about what REAL beta testing is like so you won't be so disappointed that the next patch doesn't include 20 new maps and 10 new Mechs and the Clans and CW and your stuffed MLP doll.

[keith]

Kristov Kerensky, on 29 March 2013 - 11:31 AM, said:

You know, you keep opening yourself up for a big liable suit with those statements, including the one about the Founder's money being used for things other then MWO. Credits ARE in the game, they are called MC..or did you miss that? I'll bet you used them too didn't you, so you know full well that they exist in the game.

u are dumb sir. all legendary founders are to get their names in the game credits. find the game credits:P

Edited by keith, 29 March 2013 - 11:34 AM.

[Thirdstar]

keith, on 29 March 2013 - 11:34 AM, said:

u are dumb sir. all legendary founders are to get their names in the game credits. find the game credits:P

Don't mind Kristov, he's criticism challenged.

Also check out his sig, don't mess with him, he's hardcore.

Edited by Thirdstar, 29 March 2013 - 11:41 AM.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

keith, on 29 March 2013 - 11:31 AM, said:

think i'm a bit late, but when did they quote numbers? $250,000 bucks to make god awful river city.... hope they fired that map maker after that. if i was head of pgi i would have.

It was at the PAX-East panel they did in regards to F2P games with the guy making Star Citizen and some other people. Someone asked how much it costs to make mechs and maps, and those are the numbers Brian gave. Here's a sound cloud of it AND a youtube vid.

vid:


Sound Cloud:https://soundcloud.c...othefuturepanel

Kristov Kerensky, on 29 March 2013 - 11:31 AM, said:

You know, you keep opening yourself up for a big liable suit with those statements, including the one about the Founder's money being used for things other then MWO. Credits ARE in the game, they are called MC..or did you miss that? I'll bet you used them too didn't you, so you know full well that they exist in the game.

I'm guessing that this is your first REAL beta test of a software package. See, it takes time to do what PGI has stated they'll do, it doesn't happen in days or weeks, it takes months and years. If you'd ever actually done real beta testing you'd be aware of this. This isn't the BF3 beta test, that was just a demo of the game to get people hyped for the release and buy it up, which they did in huge numbers despite how buggy and hacked to hell and back it was. You know how you can tell a so called 'beta test' from a REAL beta test? There's no list of known bugs that have been fixed in the final release in a REAL beta test...which is exactly what the BF3 'beta test' had in it's files..a list of known bugs, all stated to have been fixed in the final release, which, as it just so happens, was ready BEFORE the BF3 'beta test' was put out.

THIS is a real beta, features aren't even IN the game yet, much less issues like balance and all the assets, the netcode is still a work in progress and so on. I know, I know...you are used to those 'beta tests' you've been playing for the past decade almost now, demos released as 'betas', so you really don't know any better.

So do us, and yourself, a favor Jade, go read about what REAL beta testing is like so you won't be so disappointed that the next patch doesn't include 20 new maps and 10 new Mechs and the Clans and CW and your stuffed MLP doll.

You know...normally, I'd not respond to such an inflamatory post, but it shows just how little you know about this project.

One of the things that was promised to "Legendary Founders" was our name in the credits, as there are no credits in MWO at this moment, PGI still has not delivered the entirety of what I paid for in my 120 dollar contribution.

I've actually been involved in various beta's, from card games and RPG systems to software and even hardware, From commercial beta's as you list [BF3 as an example] to closed beta's such as Star Trek Online, TOR, Diablo 3, and even older property's Though I'll settle for what I'm showing you here.

Had I have ment MC, I'd have stated "MC" not credits, or I would have used the term "Paid Currency" As, unlike you, I am quite well versed in the marketing language that company's use for their games.

Also I find it funny that you had to draw MLP into your argument against me at all, implying that my enjoyment of a television show has any bearing on my intelligence as a whole.

Oh I'd just like to add, I don't expect everything to be included right away... far from it, but the fact that they can't get their crap together on a minimum of content is just sad.

Edited by Jade Kitsune, 29 March 2013 - 11:55 AM.

[anonymous175]

[jeffsw6]

tuokaerf, on 29 March 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

- Develop concepts for in-game assets (controls, UI, etc)
- Develop concepts for maps

Your post is quite sensible. I wish there would be working VOIP before consumable coolant flushes or air strikes, though. Those seem like the wrong priorities.

Also if it took them any time to develop concepts for controls and UI, it's because they couldn't find a copy of the 1994 MechWarrior title for PC, because it looks and functions the same.

Maps? I'm sure it takes some time to produce the maps, but it's not like no video game ever included a snowy mountain area with some buildings and obstacles and a big valley for most of the battles. But this new desert map, did they know it was going to be snipers' paradise? Is that something they learned afterward? Did they know that 8v8 matches for resource capture were going to be one-sided if one team has some lights and the other team doesn't? I dunno. I hate playing that map.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Ah, you meant the game credits, sorry, my mistake.

And..unless memory fails, which I freely admit it does at times, end game credits are usually put in when the game is released, as none of the beta tests I've done in the past 20 years included them prior to the final release build. I was in STO and TOR's alpha and beta tests and I don't recall any credits in those until release either...or did you miss that little industry standard practice? That's not a new thing either, Quake's beta didn't include end game credits until it was ready for final release. Or are you confusing demos with betas again, because I know some demos have included those since they were actually put out after the final release was ready. So far, PGI hasn't broken any promises to you in that regard, the product obviously hasn't hit release state yet, NO ONE here denies that do they?

And you have made statements, more then once, that are flat out lies, such as the Founder's money being used for projects other then MWO, something that both IGP and PGI have shown wasn't done. That's libel, which I did misspell earlier, which tends to make me view your posts with a bit of a jaundiced eye, after all, you continue to toss out a proven lie as proof that PGI can't be trusted. Who exactly is it that can't be trusted?

[PANZERBUNNY]

The two faced decisions that were "the position at the time" aren't doing them any favours.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Kristov Kerensky, on 29 March 2013 - 12:33 PM, said:

Ah, you meant the game credits, sorry, my mistake.

And..unless memory fails, which I freely admit it does at times, end game credits are usually put in when the game is released, as none of the beta tests I've done in the past 20 years included them prior to the final release build. I was in STO and TOR's alpha and beta tests and I don't recall any credits in those until release either...or did you miss that little industry standard practice? That's not a new thing either, Quake's beta didn't include end game credits until it was ready for final release. Or are you confusing demos with betas again, because I know some demos have included those since they were actually put out after the final release was ready. So far, PGI hasn't broken any promises to you in that regard, the product obviously hasn't hit release state yet, NO ONE here denies that do they?

And you have made statements, more then once, that are flat out lies, such as the Founder's money being used for projects other then MWO, something that both IGP and PGI have shown wasn't done. That's libel, which I did misspell earlier, which tends to make me view your posts with a bit of a jaundiced eye, after all, you continue to toss out a proven lie as proof that PGI can't be trusted. Who exactly is it that can't be trusted?

Mind providing proof then?

Also in the minds of many, once they started accepting money for in game items, this game was released, that's the feel of the "general public at large." and that little "Beta" tag under the name on the website doesn't change that.

Edited by Jade Kitsune, 29 March 2013 - 12:37 PM.

[tuokaerf]

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

Op... I don't think you've been involved from the start of this project like some of us have been.

Nope, but that doesn't change the fact there are development truths and realistic expectations.

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

I don't think you've seen all the broken Promises, missed deadlines, and flat out lies by the company.

Can you detail what's been promised but refused to be delivered? Delays in development are not broken promises. Be glad PGI is open about delays. Most companies are not. This is the exact reason why most companies release no development timelines or goals. Miss one, the community rips you up. Post a new date, it's a horrible delay. Give the community no information, you're being secretive and shady. You can't have it both ways with a company.

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

And I don't think you understand that all of us with a founders badge, were mislead into thinking the money we were paying was going towards development of this game, when in fact that money went to Mechwarrior:Tactics and a DOTA clone.

Source please? MW:Tactics has its own Founders program at this time (I'm one of them).

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

I don't think you're aware that many of us who were involved in the closed beta, pushed for them to extend closed beta well into feburary, when they instead launched Open Beta much too early. [be thankful we forced them to reconsider and push the date back by a week at least.]

You may have a valid comment here from a stability standpoint, the game was pretty rough in some spots when I came in shortly after Open Beta. But it's not the community who makes business decisions, it's PGI. Russ outlined some pretty good reasons here:

Quote

1) We just can’t ask more of our closed beta testers - The closed beta testers have done an amazing job, but many of you - including many founders - are just plain fatigued at having their data wiped. In fact according to our data we even have 10’s of thousands of Founders that are just waiting for Open Beta to play again so that their play time is not wasted. It is time for us to get into Open Beta and stop the data wipes.

2) We can’t effectively test certain things any further with our current community – In many ways we can’t effectively test systems both in back end infrastructure and game systems without both more and different types of players. We need to bring in new non-core players to determine what aspects of MWO interface, etc need to be changed and exactly how they should be changed. We can’t make proper headway in these areas without Open Beta.

3) Customer Support, server stress – we just need to take the next step in our player base to be able to stress and then take these systems to the next level.

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

I don't think you're aware that PGI has flat out decided to go against their devlopment pillars as stated in early dev blogs and are changing the game in a way that betrays the original intentions.

When a product is envisioned, you design out what that product would like like in the perfect world. The next step you take is to create what would be minimally viable for that product, as in, it would still sell at an acceptable level if it only had X features. This is to be realistic. Not doing this is a slow trip into development hell, and your product will never ship.

While you always aim for higher than minimally viable, things change as development progresses. Development priorities change, things that you estimate as taking 2 months suddenly become 6 months after working on it for a bit. These things happen and are nothing unique to PGI.

Also, can you talk some specifics?

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

And I don't think you're aware that we should be in the middle of Community Warfare right now... we were supposed to have DX11 by open beta, and that PGI says it has to spend multi thousands of dollars to make a single map and a single mech. When modding groups make multiple quality maps in under a month and for a fraction of the cost.

CW is coming. If it was done, it would be here right now. Also, can you detail how you (or any other studio) would have done all of that in a year and a half from scratch including existing game state?

DX11 can cause a whole slew of new issues with stability for players, I'm glad they're taking that one slow.

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

When you get news from the developers saying that it costs them $60,000-70,000 approximately to make a mech, and $250,000 to make a map, you start to question the the competence of the developers in question when mod groups in their spare time make these things to a better standard than PGI does and for well under that pricetag!

The numbers PGI throws out for cost of making maps and mechs are perfectly in line with standard cost of development formulas. You're not taking into account the entire picture, which go as follows for example (BTW, not an exhaustive list):

1) TOTAL cost of employee

- Salary
- Benefits
- Depreciable needed assets (computer, etc)
- Tools (software)
- Workspace

2) Business expenses

- License fees
- Contract fees
- Rent/Lease for office
- Utilities (gas, electric, Internet, water, etc)

Let's say the maps team is made up of 3 engineers, 2 designers/artists, and 2 QA. So let's assume an average yearly salary of $50,000 for those 7 people (maybe $70,000 for a lead engineer, $60,000 for the other two, $45,000 for the artists, and $35,000 for the QA folks). So per week, there's about $6,727 total salary for that team of 7. Over 12 weeks of development, that's about $80,000 in just salary alone. Add in cost of benefits, workspace costs, etc. and you get to ~$150,000 pretty quickly.

As for amateurs doing the same job, you can't compare. Different technology base, different game requirements, etc. It's not as simple as mocking it up in CryEngine. There's inch by inch QA that needs to happen for (assuming) all chassis. A lot of that can be ran by automation, but someone still needs to create that and do a hand check for regression. When a problem is found, the artist needs to fix it, the developer implement it, and testing happens all over again. Their timeline isn't bunk by any means.

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

OP I've looked at your profile and seen how long you've been around, but I think you were kept in the dark about a lot of things during closed beta thanks to the NDA and the like. I don't think you understand how broken the long time playerbase feels at this rate.

And it's not like I'm expecting them to make this game for free, or not expect people to pay for it, the game is decent at this point, but it's not what it could have been, nor what it should be right now. And having been involved since the 2nd wave of closed beta invites... It hurts to see how much they have promised that's simply been ignored and overlooked.

Again, which no one has answered yet, why are you mad at this point with a product that has been in development for a year and a half?

[tuokaerf]

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

One thing I keep forgetting to add... Those of us who have a Legendary Founders Badge... we actually have yet to receive all that we were promised. We're still missing one thing we were promised in the package. As Mechwarrior:Online, currently does not have credits.

I would assume game credits can come at launch?

[Kristov Kerensky]

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

Mind providing proof then?

Also in the minds of many, once they started accepting money for in game items, this game was released, that's the feel of the "general public at large." and that little "Beta" tag under the name on the website doesn't change that.

IGP and PGI provided the proof, I don't work for them so I'm not actually the one to provide it, you can look it up yourself..but that would require some effort on your part as opposed to seeing a rumor posted somewhere and running with it without checking on the source at all. IGP has even commented on that subject in the forums...you really should read something OTHER then the whine and complain posts.

And..little bit of education for you here. I didn't BUY anything when I gave PGI money for the Founder's package I have, I invested in them and the game idea they offered, MWO. In return, I was gifted with a Founder's Mech and some MC. You did the exact same thing, but as you invested more then I did, you get some better gifts, 4 Founder's Mechs, more MC and your nick listed in the end game credits when those are done. I'm sorry you don't understand how investing money works, but the fact is, whenever you invest money in something there's no legal promises you'll get any return on that investment, matter of fact, it's common to warn investors that they may well lose their money and get nothing at all for it. I know, there's plenty of people who lie to investors all the time and promise huge returns on their investment, I see them all the time in the news when they get busted for fraud and theft. PGI made no such promises, might want to keep that in mind, so there's no broken promises to be cried over. They are making a video game, they offered us a chance to invest in that game and some of us took them up on that offer. We HOPE that the game we thought they were offering is what we get, but you know what? We may end up having put our money on a failed venture and we may get nothing but the time we've already spent in the beta as our only return.

So far, I've gotten my money's worth on this investment, if you haven't..well..that's what happens when you invest, sometimes you win, sometimes you don't.

[S3dition]

Jade Kitsune, on 29 March 2013 - 11:16 AM, said:

Op... I don't think you've been involved from the start of this project like some of us have been.

I don't think you've seen all the broken Promises, missed deadlines, and flat out lies by the company.

And I don't think you understand that all of us with a founders badge, were mislead into thinking the money we were paying was going towards development of this game, when in fact that money went to Mechwarrior:Tactics and a DOTA clone.

I don't think you're aware that many of us who were involved in the closed beta, pushed for them to extend closed beta well into feburary, when they instead launched Open Beta much too early. [be thankful we forced them to reconsider and push the date back by a week at least.]

I don't think you're aware that PGI has flat out decided to go against their devlopment pillars as stated in early dev blogs and are changing the game in a way that betrays the original intentions.

And I don't think you're aware that we should be in the middle of Community Warfare right now... we were supposed to have DX11 by open beta, and that PGI says it has to spend multi thousands of dollars to make a single map and a single mech. When modding groups make multiple quality maps in under a month and for a fraction of the cost.

When you get news from the developers saying that it costs them $60,000-70,000 approximately to make a mech, and $250,000 to make a map, you start to question the the competence of the developers in question when mod groups in their spare time make these things to a better standard than PGI does and for well under that pricetag!

OP I've looked at your profile and seen how long you've been around, but I think you were kept in the dark about a lot of things during closed beta thanks to the NDA and the like. I don't think you understand how broken the long time playerbase feels at this rate.

And it's not like I'm expecting them to make this game for free, or not expect people to pay for it, the game is decent at this point, but it's not what it could have been, nor what it should be right now. And having been involved since the 2nd wave of closed beta invites... It hurts to see how much they have promised that's simply been ignored and overlooked.

Should I tell you what other games cost to make? I guess I will. Lets start with Modern Warfare 2 (based on a modified version of the Modern Warfare 1 Engine, based on the modified Quake 3 Engine) - $40 - 50 million. It had, what, 12 maps at launch. How much is that per map? It had a 4 hour campaign. That's ~$10 Million per hour of game play. Oh, and the distribution costs were $200 million. That's right, they paid $200 million in physical and digital distribution costs. They spent more money selling the game then actually making it.

All the big MMO games? $100 million PLUS. 4 Years of development time is standard for MMO's.

Game development is VERY expensive. Mods are not the same, not at all. For one, people can spend 40 hours working on a model that they don't get paid for. No benefits, no payroll taxes, no facility costs - it's all donated to the project. The hours are the same, you're just ignoring the implied cost.