498 replies to this topic

[Csypher]

lets take something people want badly and charge for it. It is the perfect way to make money right.... no it is the perfect way to be a **** and lose players.

[bootae]

One off fee, no problem and fully support that. But if it really does also require people to have a subscription fee... Wow, a fantastically bad idea that was always going to prove unpopular. MWO is great and all, but it's absolutely light years away from having enough content to justify paying a monthly sub fee. Segregating the population unless they pay (despite workarounds this is what will happen) and potentially making people already in guilds/clans/whatever feel pressured into paying a sub fee is asking for trouble.

A good F2P system (like we have now IMO) makes you want to put money in, not feel you have to.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Once again, just a heads-up. Even if they implement a requirement for a premium account to be in a merc corp, you can play for free with your friends in groups by becoming part of the House military system. I am not defending PGI, I am merely stating that you can still play with friends for free in house Davion, or Steiner, or FRR... But just not in your custom merc corp.

So, please don't say that you'll have to pay money to play in a group with friends.

Once again, once again, I am not defending anyone. I am not exactly pleased with this "announcement."

Edited by Prosperity Park, 29 March 2013 - 04:17 PM.

[DeadlyNerd]

So basically all the money we've spent(ugh... invested) into this damn game was for naught? We get nothing?

As fenix said, founders and most of the f2p community already paid for a full feature game in micro transactions and they still have the nerve to try and milk further.

This'll most definitely have quite an opposite effect on their premium income. People will stay within their original merc corps/guilds/etc. and just use the lobby system (hopefully implemented otherwise this game is going to be an even bigger fail).

No house bonuses? Who cares.

Also, IF those house bonuses do improve player performance then their whole "but this game is not p2win" statement will become 1 big fat lie. But we're used to lies so let's do it.

[DirePhoenix]

I can understand having a one-time charge to establish a Merc Corps (guild), but if it requires Premium Membership to maintain one, that will probably mean that this portion of Community Warfare gameplay is not going to be an option for me or my friends.

To put it bluntly, anything resembling a regular subscription now has a worse connotation to us (my friends/gaming group/guildies) than the phrase "F2P" did 10 years ago. If you have to pay a subscription to access even a part of that game, then ANY time you spend not actively engaged in that portion of the game (sleeping, working, taking care of personal hygiene) is time that you are wasting your money. This is especially true of the current way that Premium Time works here in MWO: Since any time our Premium Time is active and we're not playing the game actively earning XP and C-Bills (including just looking at the Mechlab), that is money being thrown right out the window. (I have still never used any of my Founder's Premium Time and may never use it because I don't have a "pause" button to hold the clock from ticking down when I'm not playing)

This is also why I don't take part in the Clan Wars in WoT. While WoT is a game that my friends and I have fun in, we don't play regularly enough for any of us to justify a "premium account" so we never formed a clan. I believe WoT has changed this requirement relatively recently, but I haven't investigated it and I'm not completely sure there's enough of my friends regularly playing to even form a WoT clan now. I can also say that because we weren't able to get into a clan together when we first got into the game, it affected how frequently we play that game. And for some, I'm sure it has completely slipped off their radar by now, since those of us that still play only PuG it... not even trying to be online at the same time in the same game anymore.

In MWO, I was going to form a Merc Corps for my gaming group. We have several people that favor different Houses (Davion, FRR, Kurita), which would mean that if we tried going the House Faction route we would be split up. We could get around that however, by making a Merc Corps, and just changing employers every once in a while. Sure we may not be able to increase our loyalty points with a particular faction as fast as a House-dedicated Merc Corps, but we would have loyalty to our group, and that's the one that matters.

If they go through with this idea to require Premium Time to maintain your membership in a Merc Corps, that may not be an option for us anymore. We'll be split into our individual Houses, only seeing each other in-game if we manage to get matched together in a Faction battle. And then our activity will wane like it did with WoT. (I'm not saying we'll quit, because that's an extremist knee-jerk response and stupid. But there will be less motivation to keep playing on a regular basis as a group)

Now I said earlier that I did understand a one-time charge to establish a Merc Corps. The reason given in the Polygon.com article made sense to me. Minimize the number of "1-man guilds" by requiring a fee. I might expand on this a little further and say something like:

• Have a purchasable "Merc Corps Charter" item.
  
• Require 4 Merc Corps Charters (1 Lance) to establish a Merc Corps.

This way it requires at least 1 Lance of players to be interested enough to drop some cash to establish a Merc Group together. Since it takes more than one player to invest, there is a higher chance that these founders will stick with that Merc Group rather than just signing on to help form the unit and then leave.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Gremlich Johns, on 29 March 2013 - 04:04 PM, said:

he said so here but not for content, just to establish a merc group.

I still want to know whether community warfare will be 1st Person View only.

What he stated is that it would cost to create a merc corps as a flat fee. Anything after that is possible, not set in stone. I have already have used all of my Founders bonus stuff. I've chosen to spend more because I saw the value of what I bought.

Now if Bryan says "for a monthly fee" we will give your group an additional 10% XP and C-Bill boost for every contract you win a bid on and participate in. All players listed in your corps will receive that bonus whether they participated in the match or not, I'd seriously consider making that purchase.

If he further said that any player who has premium time purchased I'll add an additional 5% to that player above their % boosts as individual players and the 10% MC boost, I'd suggest my teammates buy premium time as well.

Edited by KuruptU4Fun, 29 March 2013 - 04:20 PM.

[Ranek Blackstone]

I'm down with a one time fee for guild/clan/corp start up. Having to play monthly though would probably push me away.

Hi-Rez (the dudes that make Smite and did the Tribes reboot) tried something like this with their first game, Global Agenda. The big clan matches were set to require a 10 USD monthly sub, but it never went live. After 3 months of the competitive PvP system being free to play, they found fewer then 5% of registered accounts actually played the game mode despite it being free.

So in short, trying to make CW into a cash stream isn't really going to work PGI. Others have tried, and failed.

[Dreamslave]

Prosperity Park, on 29 March 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

Once again, just a heads-up. Even if they implement a requirement for a premium account to be in a merc corp, you can play for free with your friends in groups by becoming part of the House military system. I am not defending PGI, I am merely stating that you can still play with friends for free in house Davion, or Steiner, or FRR... But just not in your custom merc corp.

So, please don't say that you'll have to pay money to play in a group with friends.

This x1000. People, don't get up in arms over things some of you are clearly having trouble comprehending.

[Protection]

Kell Commander, on 29 March 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

I have to agree with Nick Carlyle here. Why can't a Dev take a few minutes to log onto the forums and say something? ANYTHING?

Because they realize they've ****** up and enraged their fanbase for like the fifth time this year and are all in the boardroom trying to come up with a good bait and switch damage control to find a "compromise" that still allows them to milk the dwindling playerbase while having enough vagueness or ambiguity to keep the community from open revolt.

[Peiper]

Prosperity Park, on 29 March 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

Once again, just a heads-up. Even if they implement a requirement for a premium account to be in a merc corp, you can play for free with your friends in groups by becoming part of the House military system. I am not defending PGI, I am merely stating that you can still play with friends for free in house Davion, or Steiner, or FRR... But just not in your custom merc corp.

So, please don't say that you'll have to pay money to play in a group with friends.

But the planets you fight for in a merc corp are not the same as the planets you fight for as part of a house/faction. So, how is it that a non paying friend can drop with you on a world that is only pay to play, which are the planets the merc corps are fighting for?

[Felicitatem Parco]

DeadlyNerd, on 29 March 2013 - 04:17 PM, said:

This'll most definitely have quite an opposite effect on their premium income. People will stay within their original merc corps/guilds/etc. and just use the lobby system (hopefully implemented otherwise this game is going to be an even bigger fail).

No house bonuses? Who cares.

Also, IF those house bonuses do improve player performance then their whole "but this game is not p2win" statement will become 1 big fat lie. But we're used to lies so let's do it.

I foresee lots of Merc corps folding into Houses so they can stay together and keep playing for free, if they go through with the plan to charge a premium account for Merc corp access. There will be some sort of House bonuses for house players, like cheaper House Mechs.

Still looking forward to a official reply and letting them soak in our commentary before a final solution is agreed-on, though.

[Gremlich Johns]

SNobleJr, on 29 March 2013 - 04:06 PM, said:

If this turns out to be actually true and not just Bryan putting his foot in his mouth, well... bad move. Very bad move.

\
Maybe they are getting to the point of only opening their mouths to change feet....

[Dreamslave]

DirePhoenix, on 29 March 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

I can understand having a one-time charge to establish a Merc Corps (guild), but if it requires Premium Membership to maintain one, that will probably mean that this portion of Community Warfare gameplay is not going to be an option for me or my friends.

To put it bluntly, anything resembling a regular subscription now has a worse connotation to us (my friends/gaming group/guildies) than the phrase "F2P" did 10 years ago. If you have to pay a subscription to access even a part of that game, then ANY time you spend not actively engaged in that portion of the game (sleeping, working, taking care of personal hygiene) is time that you are wasting your money. This is especially true of the current way that Premium Time works here in MWO: Since any time our Premium Time is active and we're not playing the game actively earning XP and C-Bills (including just looking at the Mechlab), that is money being thrown right out the window. (I have still never used any of my Founder's Premium Time and may never use it because I don't have a "pause" button to hold the clock from ticking down when I'm not playing)

This is also why I don't take part in the Clan Wars in WoT. While WoT is a game that my friends and I have fun in, we don't play regularly enough for any of us to justify a "premium account" so we never formed a clan. I believe WoT has changed this requirement relatively recently, but I haven't investigated it and I'm not completely sure there's enough of my friends regularly playing to even form a WoT clan now. I can also say that because we weren't able to get into a clan together when we first got into the game, it affected how frequently we play that game. And for some, I'm sure it has completely slipped off their radar by now, since those of us that still play only PuG it... not even trying to be online at the same time in the same game anymore.

In MWO, I was going to form a Merc Corps for my gaming group. We have several people that favor different Houses (Davion, FRR, Kurita), which would mean that if we tried going the House Faction route we would be split up. We could get around that however, by making a Merc Corps, and just changing employers every once in a while. Sure we may not be able to increase our loyalty points with a particular faction as fast as a House-dedicated Merc Corps, but we would have loyalty to our group, and that's the one that matters.

If they go through with this idea to require Premium Time to maintain your membership in a Merc Corps, that may not be an option for us anymore. We'll be split into our individual Houses, only seeing each other in-game if we manage to get matched together in a Faction battle. And then our activity will wane like it did with WoT. (I'm not saying we'll quit, because that's an extremist knee-jerk response and stupid. But there will be less motivation to keep playing on a regular basis as a group)

Now I said earlier that I did understand a one-time charge to establish a Merc Corps. The reason given in the Polygon.com article made sense to me. Minimize the number of "1-man guilds" by requiring a fee. I might expand on this a little further and say something like:

• Have a purchasable "Merc Corps Charter" item.
  
• Require 4 Merc Corps Charters (1 Lance) to establish a Merc Corps.

This way it requires at least 1 Lance of players to be interested enough to drop some cash to establish a Merc Group together. Since it takes more than one player to invest, there is a higher chance that these founders will stick with that Merc Group rather than just signing on to help form the unit and then leave.

Do you have a cell phone? Cable Television? You clearly have internet, but you pay for that monthly and obviously cannot be using that 24/7. It's how subscriptions WORK. This is the same exact thing.

[Devil Fox]

KuruptU4Fun, on 29 March 2013 - 04:02 PM, said:

What is needed is people who understand they are consumers, but have the mentality of investors. Give them your money because you see the potential of a growing product, then give them the room to build that product to fit a mass audience..

The problem is that mass audience they are "trying" to attract are coming to this game with no tutorial, hard to understand mechbay system, no concept of the trial mech system and it's purpose etc. This game isn't even new player friendly, but then their attracting the players with the F2P model, advertising and exposure... how do you think their going to feel once they come to the realisation that to get the best from this game is to join a merc corp, but now the game suddenly turns from F2P to P2P because that's also where the real meat of this game is?

Factions only give an opportunity for House players to play together under their unit's, for free content like skins and titles (maybe even economic benefits). But you'll still see House Unit's in the Merc CW because factions are dev controlled, they are stale battles that whilst change from planet to planet through the timeline, the player has no impact whatsoever on the universe. Whereas in the Merc CW you can control a planet for prestige, you can change the dynamics of the universe in the back-end of this galaxy by taking a planet...

Once you put a P2P option into the game, no matter how much F2P that game is, it still becomes a P2P to access the real competition and enjoyment... this is seen in so many MMO's now which highly restrict free players, it's fun and free but at some point you'll either drop the game or HAVE to pony up the dosh to play game.

[Rina Fujimoto]

Kell Commander, on 29 March 2013 - 04:11 PM, said:

I have to agree with Nick Carlyle here. Why can't a Dev take a few minutes to log onto the forums and say something? ANYTHING?

After the third person fiasco they told us that they don't care about forum feedback remember? They only care about what the people who don't visit the forums think....as in, the ones that don't even give feedback to begin with since they aren't involved in the community.

They don't care about you, or me, they already got their money for other projects, time to find new sucker-I mean, A NEW DEMOGRAPHIC

[pjnt]

Dreamslave, on 29 March 2013 - 04:22 PM, said:

Do you have a cell phone? Cable Television? You clearly have internet, but you pay for that monthly and obviously cannot be using that 24/7. It's how subscriptions WORK. This is the same exact thing.

I can only watch parts of my tv shows though since the producers didn't finish making the episode. My cell phone drops 1/2 my calls and sends only every other letter of texts. Your right, its the same exact thing.

[Gremlich Johns]

Cur, on 29 March 2013 - 04:09 PM, said:

P.S - I have been told that all these pay to win decisions come from IGP and not PGI themselves, something about the downside of selling their soul for $$. Unsure if i believe, but would be interested to see how much better PGI would be if they had of launched through kickstarter. Planetary Annihiliation is looking very nice.

don't forget MW:LL, for whatever you can get Crysis Wars for (sometimes $6), you get combined arms and Clan mechs.

[Taurick]

Prosperity Park, on 29 March 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

Once again, just a heads-up. Even if they implement a requirement for a premium account to be in a merc corp, you can play for free with your friends in groups by becoming part of the House military system. I am not defending PGI, I am merely stating that you can still play with friends for free in house Davion, or Steiner, or FRR... But just not in your custom merc corp.

So, please don't say that you'll have to pay money to play in a group with friends.

Once again, once again, I am not defending anyone. I am not exactly pleased with this "announcement."

People know this, what they are complaining about is PGI turning around and saying

'Hey you know that feature we've been hyping for months? The lynchpin and cornerstone of our long term plans for this game? The only persistent element to this universe, that you have all been waiting a long time to be able to influence?
Well **** YOU, if you want it you'll empty your wallet *****.'

[Fenix0742]

Prosperity Park, on 29 March 2013 - 04:21 PM, said:

I foresee lots of Merc corps folding into Houses so they can stay together and keep playing for free, if they go through with the plan to charge a premium account for Merc corp access. There will be some sort of House bonuses for house players, like cheaper House Mechs.

Still looking forward to a official reply and letting them soak in our commentary before a final solution is agreed-on, though.

I forsee lots of Merc corps breaking up as some of them will be willing to pay for independence, some of them would not/could not pay for premium, and some of them outright moving on to other games.

[Roadbeer]

Prosperity Park, on 29 March 2013 - 04:16 PM, said:

Once again, just a heads-up. Even if they implement a requirement for a premium account to be in a merc corp, you can play for free with your friends in groups by becoming part of the House military system. I am not defending PGI, I am merely stating that you can still play with friends for free in house Davion, or Steiner, or FRR... But just not in your custom merc corp.

So, please don't say that you'll have to pay money to play in a group with friends.

Once again, once again, I am not defending anyone. I am not exactly pleased with this "announcement."

PP, Please, we all get that, but all of the Merc Units that have spent over a year recruiting, investing in websites, VoIP server space, graphic design, sigs, etc. , etc. etc...

This is just sticking it in and breaking it off.