100 replies to this topic

[Xendojo]

Sir Trent Howell, on 03 April 2013 - 07:52 AM, said:

It's a Beta. If you don't know how to get on a forum to report bugs/issues, then you have no business being in a Beta and your opinion doesn't matter. You signed on to a Beta, ostensibly, to help report bugs and improve the game. If you don't have access to the forums to report bugs, then, well, you can figure it out.

Yea its OPEN beta. And lets be honest, most of the people joining this "beta" are not here to help test, they are here to play the game. You seem oblivious to the points i was trying to make about the majority of MWO users.

espchucky, on 03 April 2013 - 07:56 AM, said:

Silent majority? Here i donate my 3rd post count for u.

We dont care if MWO/PGI sink...if its a good game in the end, we will roll in more $$...if its a failure we will just jump ship.

Bought heavy metal just now, played 2rounds and started to CTD. Friend arrived and asked how was the new mech and i showed him my black screen....face palm and proceed to dinner without single-poop given

Perfect example of the the points made in my original post. Only most people will not come post about jumping ship before they do it. And guess what? You have just joined the vocal minority. Welcome

AlexEss, on 03 April 2013 - 07:54 AM, said:

I suggest PGI get on twitter and facebook and enlighten these people RIGHT NOW... before it is to late and MWO perishes.

Fixed it for you.

Edited by Xendojo, 03 April 2013 - 08:07 AM.

[Dishevel]

Who cares about the silent majority.
Are these not the same people who though they never speak have told the Devs that they are the ones who want third person?
So maybe this is good.
Devs destroy the game,
Silent majority leaves because they can not play.
Vocal minority stays due to the joy of telling people how useless they are on the forums.
Weeks later it gets somewhat fixed (Semi Playable).
Third person silent majority is gone and we get our game back.

[BoydofZINJ]

Do you know why the silent majority are called silent... they are silent on the subject... let them be at peace and be silent.

[Noobzorz]

Dishevel, on 03 April 2013 - 08:15 AM, said:

Who cares about the silent majority.
Are these not the same people who though they never speak have told the Devs that they are the ones who want third person?
So maybe this is good.
Devs destroy the game,
Silent majority leaves because they can not play.
Vocal minority stays due to the joy of telling people how useless they are on the forums.
Weeks later it gets somewhat fixed (Semi Playable).
Third person silent majority is gone and we get our game back.

Game?

You mean ghost town that is not financially viable?

PGI/IGP's strategy is up to them, since ultimately they are uninterested in business advice from us (though, seriously, hire the rest of your team already), but courting the "silent majority" is something you should probably do.

The second it becomes hard to find matches is the second I no longer play.

(I should add that, thankfully, they are pursuing that silent majority, and hopefully they have their finger on the pulse. But this patch was a trainwreck, and Xendojo is dead to rights that people are going to say "**** this" if you have too many like it.)

Edited by Noobzorz, 03 April 2013 - 08:24 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Xendojo, on 03 April 2013 - 07:52 AM, said:

Oh they will...but will they still be silently playing MWO? Or will they stealthily move on and not bother to announce loudly that they are leaving?

I'm guessing option #2 will be more popular.

Well if they aren't playing the game, not giving feedback How do the DEVs know what they want? They Are silent? Non communicative, don't speak up, have given no opinion, Have clammed up, been mum, even been reticent... how does PGI know what they want???

(This has been a parrot skit parody. and now for something completely different...)

[Noobzorz]

Joseph Mallan, on 03 April 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

Well if they aren't playing the game, not giving feedback How do the DEVs know what they want? They Are silent? Non communicative, don't speak up, have given no opinion, Have clammed up, been mum, even been reticent... how does PGI know what they want???

(This has been a parrot skit parody. and now for something completely different...)

PGI aught to know that what they want is "patches that do not break the game or introduce new issues." Hard to fault Xendojo for his logic there. I mean, we got an amazingly small amount of content for the number of things they broke. I saw someone speculating that they are trying to get DX11 working and these are baby steps, but if so, I am beginning to understand why they just gave up and stuck it on DX9.

And for that matter, the overwhelming majority of forum goers do not want third person view, but they're doing it, so they must have SOME way of gauging these sorts of things.

[Xendojo]

Boydsan, on 03 April 2013 - 08:17 AM, said:

Do you know why the silent majority are called silent... they are silent on the subject... let them be at peace and be silent.

"Silent Majority" is a misnomer

While we will not see their opinions or thoughts, that does not mean that they are not forming opinions or having thoughts about this game.
And yes we should care what they are thinking or feeling about this game even though they do not express those ideas here.

[Samophlange]

This member of the silent majority started a post. It was shut down.
I had genuine questions, with no intent to start an argument. It was deemed non-constructive.
It was considered "imbecilic" by a few founders.

So, why should people with educated opinions bother to speak up? Hrmm. <frustrated & confused>

[Lyteros]

Whoever feels the need to express themself will visit the forum - may it be to rage, to complain, to like, to explain gratitute... simply to point out whatever the person feels.

Whoever does not care will not say a thing.

It is 2013 - not 1993. Posting on a forum with the mandatory account you create when joining is not that hard.

[Xendojo]

Lyteros, on 03 April 2013 - 08:32 AM, said:

Whoever feels the need to express themself will visit the forum - may it be to rage, to complain, to like, to explain gratitute... simply to point out whatever the person feels.

Whoever does not care will not say a thing.

It is 2013 - not 1993. Posting on a forum with the mandatory account you create when joining is not that hard.

But it requires effort above just playing the game. Which, let's face it, most users are just not willing to do.

Which is what(in part)has me concerned.

Edited by Xendojo, 03 April 2013 - 08:35 AM.

[Lyteros]

Xendojo, on 03 April 2013 - 08:34 AM, said:

But it requires effort above just playing the game. Which, let's face it, most users are just not willing to do.

Which is what has me concerned.

I'm rather concerned about the rate of attrition in the playes I know and the course & state of the game.

The first experience counts most, people who join up to try MWO and feel left alone due to missing tutorials, a lot of stuff to learn and all the problems may just make people leave after a few tries with trialmechs, maybe they return later for another trie or maybe they join another community - there are lots of games out there.

[MaddMaxx]

Noobzorz, on 03 April 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

Game?

You mean ghost town that is not financially viable?

PGI/IGP's strategy is up to them, since ultimately they are uninterested in business advice from us (though, seriously, hire the rest of your team already), but courting the "silent majority" is something you should probably do.

The second it becomes hard to find matches is the second I no longer play.

(I should add that, thankfully, they are pursuing that silent majority, and hopefully they have their finger on the pulse. But this patch was a trainwreck, and Xendojo is dead to rights that people are going to say "**** this" if you have too many like it.)

So you admit, as of your Post, finding a Game was not an issue? Otherwise you would be gone, from the Forums too right? So that said Ghost Town seems to have a lot of Ghosts in it currently. Hmmm, I wonder if ghosts buy MC...

[Xendojo]

Lyteros, on 03 April 2013 - 08:37 AM, said:

I'm rather concerned about the rate of attrition in the playes I know and the course & state of the game.

The first experience counts most, people who join up to try MWO and feel left alone due to missing tutorials, a lot of stuff to learn and all the problems may just make people leave after a few tries with trialmechs, maybe they return later for another trie or maybe they join another community - there are lots of games out there.

This is part of my concern as well.

If attrition is visible among MW/BT fans and forum users then it is a problem. As i said in the OP, someone who is unfortunate enough to experience MWO for the first time on this patch is probably not going to stay around too long.

[Hedonism Robot]

They will eventually have to fix their drivers, but not even new drivers will save you from the crashing that's taking place in this patch......

This patch had a lot of performance optimizes in it which always creates new and exciting bugs. Hopefully PGI will let us know when the hotfix is inc.

[Lanessar]

I guess I'm part of the silent majority, since I haven't played since January.

This should be my first post in 3 months. Anyhow, long story short, the game client hasn't been updated or run on my machine since then, and I can't speak for any "majority", but every set of patch notes pretty much contains the same old thing, rinse and repeat:

1. Fix for bug introduced in a previous patch/noted in closed beta.
2. New mech, new hero mech, added skin and bobbleheads.
3. Something added to the game that might make me want to see what it's like, if there weren't 50 pages of it being broken.

When it changes from this, or there's some sort of persistence or something which indicates any sort of community play (CW), I'll start again.

[Lyteros]

Lanessar, on 03 April 2013 - 09:09 AM, said:

I guess I'm part of the silent majority, since I haven't played since January.

This should be my first post in 3 months. Anyhow, long story short, the game client hasn't been updated or run on my machine since then, and I can't speak for any "majority", but every set of patch notes pretty much contains the same old thing, rinse and repeat:

1. Fix for bug introduced in a previous patch/noted in closed beta.
2. New mech, new hero mech, added skin and bobbleheads.
3. Something added to the game that might make me want to see what it's like, if there weren't 50 pages of it being broken.

When it changes from this, or there's some sort of persistence or something which indicates any sort of community play (CW), I'll start again.

On topic of persistance: you should leave the forums before you find the threads about 3rd person and Consumables.
Or to save you time, I'll sum up PGI's integrity answer: "It was our position at that time".

Edited by Lyteros, 03 April 2013 - 09:12 AM.

[Lanessar]

Lyteros, on 03 April 2013 - 09:12 AM, said:

On topic of persistance: you should leave the forums before you find the threads about 3rd person and Consumables.
Or to save you time, I'll sum up PGI's integrity answer: "It was our position at that time".

Too late, I read those. Bottom line problems I see with the development model: They break more than they fix with every patch.

I was a paying customer. I also happen to be a software developer. I even made excuses for PGI's problems back in CB, and post-release. Five or six months later, there's just no reason but poor development practices to have some of these issues come in every patch.

I really don't see any movement toward CW (GDC announcement notwithstanding; a similar statement was made at game launch, as I recall). Pretty much everything gets delayed because the code breaks more than they fix it. I guess the model is persisting because it's free software (technically); but any other Lead would have been canned if there were 4 months (well, let's say 4, but CB adds at least 3 more) of buggy patches with major issues.

I'm not negative nancy. If the development model changes, and the game actually starts moving towards the goals stated for release (close to eight months ago now) and are visible, then I'll return. And they'll get money from me.

As of now, this model drove off one customer (actually, eight, counting my friends who used to play and no longer do). Not the game; the development model. So that's money they aren't making anymore.

Edited by Lanessar, 03 April 2013 - 09:24 AM.

[Munkerz]

Driver updates should be a common knowledge for any PC gamer as some games really need them to function.
Almost always, when you report a graphical bug for any (new or recently updated) game, usually the first response is to check your drivers are up to date.
I've been caught out several times by driver issues when it came to Lord of the Rings Online, and Fable 3 (though I regret buying that game) required an update.

[Stone Profit]

Syllogy, on 03 April 2013 - 06:48 AM, said:

So you're saying that you disagree with PGI's advice in the patch notes to upgrade drivers, because players might not upgrade their drivers?

...this sounds a lot like an argument for putting braille on drive-thru ATMs, because blind people might want the ability to use them too...

There is braille on drive up atms because the atm is a standard design, placed in both walk up and drive through locations.

[Lyteros]

Lanessar, on 03 April 2013 - 09:23 AM, said:

[snip]

Yeah same with me. Tried constructive feedback etc. for months without resposne, same for a lot of smart people who actually gave them a very nice summary of problems with possible fixes. Nothing changed.

I'm working Q&A on a software company bigger then PGI, I know what you're talking about and feel exactly the same way.

Now I'm not playing anymore but keep an eye on it - probably things change. I still try to get some constructive (and when I realize again its not helping - some time probably not so constructive) feedback back from time to time though.