74 replies to this topic

[Alex Warden]

didn´t vote... weither or not i trust pgi´s promises is my own buisness... even if i´m not content with some of the latest decisions, polls like this won´t help the general communication between them and us... you can disagree if you want, but thats my opinion... oil never erased fire too well...

for the most part, this game is still great after month´s of playing (half a year now, woot!) and the latest infos (gdc) about CW made me happy, cause it still sounds like the concepts they had... i don´t think it will be really finished and polished this year, but i hope we´ll get a good basis until september...

i dont know what "changes in CW" the twitter stuff is about, but the interviews sound pretty much like what i was expecting from the devblogs...

[Sean Kye]

Voted "stop with polls". Guess what? PGI/Piranha is a business. And like most businesses if you thought something said two weeks ago is set in stone and would never change you are quite foolish. The path their business will take, the information moving around, and the "Vision" held about the current project is only as current as the last Executive staff meeting. I can't lose trust in something I never bother to put trust in to begin with. To us this is a game, and once we grow fond of it, we feel invested, I understand. Do yourself a favor, go read the EULA again. It is a product, it is soley owned by PGI, and it is ever evolving with no promise that tomorrow's experience will be the same as today's

There are really good legal reasons that "game experience" statements are in all EULAs written for games.

Just a hint from your old uncle Sean, Don't put so much stock in anything any company tells you, even the one you work for. Watch what they do and how often they change course. Then you know how much weight to give whatever they state their current "Vision" is. And then expect that to change anyway.

Edited by Sean Kye, 07 April 2013 - 03:51 AM.

[Gen Kumon]

I used to trust them. Turns out that was only my position at the time.

[Mild Monkey]

What the whating what? PGI is a business. They do whatever they want in order to earn money in order to feed their families and keep their project afloat in order to generate more money in order to ... rinse, repeat. They do not owe us anything in terms of trust. I do not trust them since they are an enterprise based around people with too much time and money on their hands to spend. We aren't forced in any way to use their product. THEIR product. It is theirs, with copyright protection, sinister voodoo priests chanting spells to prevent others to steal it and market divinations using rune-inscripted human knucklebones.
There can not be any trust issue because we all agreed to use their product as seen, theirs is the sole decision-making prerogative. Play it and "vent your spleens" as much as you want on the forums or stop playing it.

Whenever I hear "longstanding customer", "consumer trust" etc. etc., I know you guys forget how this business works: This is not about a base of longstanding customers and faithful community members, this business revolves around bringing waves upon waves of new players to the game. Players, in case you weren't aware, have an expiration date in FTP titles. They stop being useful after some time, even if they continue spending money.

Why? Because they become too good and way too involved. They scare away new players by literally killing them in-game before a new player was able to spend enough money. So if a veteran user uninstalls and ragequits, it doesn't matter as long as there are 10 new players downloading this client right now. if 2 of them get hooked, that's a good thing. They generate enough money and no one cares if they stay longer than 6 months. If they don't so what? They have spent enough money on vanity items and watched their mech in 3rd person stomping other mechs. Make way for new customers.

tl;dr. You want to play Mechwarrior Online? Do so, by all means, play in any manner you want to, there are enough ways to enjoy the hardcore experience, and there always will be. You are just not the salt of the earth for this business model. MAU and DAU are more important than YOU.

Edited by Mild Monkey, 07 April 2013 - 03:55 AM.

[Barghest Whelp]

Community: We can haz flush coolant?
PGI: No, flush coolant is stupid, so just forget it already.
Community: Oh, ok.
PGI: Oh wait, um, here, have some p2w flush coolant.
Community: Rabble rabble rabble *p2w* rabble
PGI: Oh, well, here have some flush coolant that is not so p2w
Community: But you said we would never get this!
PGI: ...

Need more? Ok.

PGI: Well, we're thinking about adding 3pv.
Community: NOOOOOOO! I'll never join you!
PGI: Oh, maybe it's not such a good idea.
Community: *much rejoicing*
PGI: Um, hang on, on second thought, let's add it anyways and segment the player base some more.
Community: Screw you PGI! You've broken our trust. This game is going to fail!
PGI: Here, we've created a thread were you can discuss how 3pv should be implemented. We don't want to hear any "don't do it" posts.
Community: WHAT? But you promised not to add it!
PGI: *Ignore*

And let's not forget the best one:

PGI: Hey guys, we wanna make a really cool and awesome mechwarrior game! But we need 5 million dollars to do so.
Fanbase: AWESOME! Here, have five mill.
PGI: Thank you. Now then, we'll just invest some of this cash in two aother games that are totally going to fail.
Fanbase: Hang on a minute, we gave you that money to make mechwarrior!
PGI: *Ignore*

Yup. Many good reasons for having a lot of faith in PGI and MWO.

[Ghost Rider LSOV]

Xelrah, on 07 April 2013 - 12:02 AM, said:

Because I just can't find myself to believe them with most of the things after recent interviews and 3rd person announcement.


Full convo from the above shot is here for those interested (no twitter account needed): https://twitter.com/...029056975200256

Try to keep conversation at some decent level.
And just don't vote too much for the last one.

Completing the part that's not visible on your link.
https://twitter.com/...052381050929152

And why did we go back to 1 week ago?
Haven't we already discussed this?

Edited by Ghost Rider LSOV, 07 April 2013 - 04:11 AM.

[RedDragon]

Barghest Whelp, on 07 April 2013 - 04:01 AM, said:

Community: We can haz flush coolant?
PGI: No, flush coolant is stupid, so just forget it already.
Community: Oh, ok.
PGI: Oh wait, um, here, have some p2w flush coolant.
Community: Rabble rabble rabble *p2w* rabble
PGI: Oh, well, here have some flush coolant that is not so p2w
Community: But you said we would never get this!
PGI: ...

Need more? Ok.

PGI: Well, we're thinking about adding 3pv.
Community: NOOOOOOO! I'll never join you!
PGI: Oh, maybe it's not such a good idea.
Community: *much rejoicing*
PGI: Um, hang on, on second thought, let's add it anyways and segment the player base some more.
Community: Screw you PGI! You've broken our trust. This game is going to fail!
PGI: Here, we've created a thread were you can discuss how 3pv should be implemented. We don't want to hear any "don't do it" posts.
Community: WHAT? But you promised not to add it!
PGI: *Ignore*

And let's not forget the best one:

PGI: Hey guys, we wanna make a really cool and awesome mechwarrior game! But we need 5 million dollars to do so.
Fanbase: AWESOME! Here, have five mill.
PGI: Thank you. Now then, we'll just invest some of this cash in two aother games that are totally going to fail.
Fanbase: Hang on a minute, we gave you that money to make mechwarrior!
PGI: *Ignore*

Yup. Many good reasons for having a lot of faith in PGI and MWO.

As polemic and hyperbolic that may be... it's sad that it really more or less went that way

Edited by RedDragon, 07 April 2013 - 04:11 AM.

[Barghest Whelp]

RedDragon, on 07 April 2013 - 04:10 AM, said:

As polemic and hyperbolic that may be... it's sad that it really more or less went that way

Yes, I know my post was a bit over the top, but I think it more or less reflects how I feel right now.

[FrOdO]

If I ever made a game, I would never listen to the community. FACT.

Everybody thinks they know better and they can't wait to tell somebody.

[Ph30nix]

i honestly think most of the problem is really IGP more so then PGI, which when a bad publisher gets invovled with a good game they always tend to give the developer zero really help or support and just kick them down the road as hard as they can looking for the $$$.

i also thinking while PGI has anywhere from 30-60 employees somethigns telling me IGP has them devoting very little in the way of resources to mechwarrior and instead has them working on other projects.

[Krondor]

Barghest Whelp, on 07 April 2013 - 04:01 AM, said:

Community: We can haz flush coolant?
PGI: No, flush coolant is stupid, so just forget it already.
Community: Oh, ok.
PGI: Oh wait, um, here, have some p2w flush coolant.
Community: Rabble rabble rabble *p2w* rabble
PGI: Oh, well, here have some flush coolant that is not so p2w
Community: But you said we would never get this!
PGI: ...

Need more? Ok.

PGI: Well, we're thinking about adding 3pv.
Community: NOOOOOOO! I'll never join you!
PGI: Oh, maybe it's not such a good idea.
Community: *much rejoicing*
PGI: Um, hang on, on second thought, let's add it anyways and segment the player base some more.
Community: Screw you PGI! You've broken our trust. This game is going to fail!
PGI: Here, we've created a thread were you can discuss how 3pv should be implemented. We don't want to hear any "don't do it" posts.
Community: WHAT? But you promised not to add it!
PGI: *Ignore*

And let's not forget the best one:

PGI: Hey guys, we wanna make a really cool and awesome mechwarrior game! But we need 5 million dollars to do so.
Fanbase: AWESOME! Here, have five mill.
PGI: Thank you. Now then, we'll just invest some of this cash in two aother games that are totally going to fail.
Fanbase: Hang on a minute, we gave you that money to make mechwarrior!
PGI: *Ignore*

Yup. Many good reasons for having a lot of faith in PGI and MWO.

Simple, but it gets the point across.

The 5-mil thing is a sticking point. If Chris Roberts took that 8-mil he's raised for Star Citizen and invested it in other games there'd be hell to pay. I didn't pay to fund other projects. I payed to fund MWO.

[FrOdO]

Has anybody here looked at PGIs back catalog? What did you expect?

[Oderint dum Metuant]

As much as i trust a priest locked in a room with a small boy.

[Leetskeet]

Your poll's been ruined by the last choice, fyi.

[FrOdO]

DV McKenna, on 07 April 2013 - 04:58 AM, said:

As much as i trust a priest locked in a room with a small boy.

[Krondor]

DV McKenna, on 07 April 2013 - 04:58 AM, said:

As much as i trust a priest locked in a room with a small boy.

I LOL'd. I'm a horrible person.

[WolvesX]

Can someone explain we what happend exactly?

I wasn't able to follow MWO the last weeks.

If you don't want to summarize, you could post links also.

Thank you in advance!
Wolves

[Krondor]

WolvesX, on 07 April 2013 - 05:07 AM, said:

Can someone explain we what happend exactly?

I wasn't able to follow MWO the last weeks.

If you don't want to summarize, you could post links also.

Thank you in advance!
Wolves

The TL;DR is that PGI makes vague statements about commitments, and they tend to backpedal on hard statements they make.

As for the 5 mil, PGI stated the foundar's program raised around 5 million... and they proceeded to invest a bunch of it in projects not MWO related.

Edited by Krondor, 07 April 2013 - 05:13 AM.

[John Norad]

Hey, it's a small development studio that's seemingly being bullied by their investors/publisher who obviously have no clue about what makes a successful game (thus money).

What do you expect?

Of course I don't trust ANY game developer nowadays. Age of Conan was the last game that got me halfway hyped. After that fiasco, and several years of playing Eve Online, I buried any trust and hope and simply wait until a game is released, and reviewed, by friends, or independent sources, not game magazines.

In the case of MWO I haven't turned my back, yet, because I've player BT for many years and probably fall into the 'hardcore fan' category.
It's enough attachment to keep an eye on the forums and post here and there. Not enough to play and endure the bugs/imbalance/missing content/shallow game design/horrible UI, though.

FrOdO, on 07 April 2013 - 04:45 AM, said:

If I ever made a game, I would never listen to the community. FACT.

Everybody thinks they know better and they can't wait to tell somebody.

Well yes, you should never blindly listen to your community.
BUT you should always listen to what they have to say, and consider it, with a healthy dose of common sense, while sticking to your plan.
Actually, sometimes the community, or at least some members of it, know better.
Though at any rate, being right doesn't correlate with being the loudest, or the most prominent.

Edited by John Norad, 07 April 2013 - 05:22 AM.

[Barghest Whelp]

WolvesX, on 07 April 2013 - 05:07 AM, said:

Can someone explain we what happend exactly?

I wasn't able to follow MWO the last weeks.

If you don't want to summarize, you could post links also.

Thank you in advance!
Wolves

My post, it sums it up nicely. Well, not really, there are other things too. Put it this way, the UI has been buggy since I started playing more than 6 months ago. And that's just one of many issues which have not been addressed.

Other than that, I guess you could say it has something to do with the way they communicate with their player (or avoid doing so, I should say). It's like this:

1. PGI cookes up some idea and thinks it's brilliant, and decides to start working on it stright away before telling the community squat.

2. Forums are on fire for a week, and PGI finally decides to make some sort of statement. In the off chance that they actually take the communities concerns to heart, this means they'll need to scrap everything they've spent more than a week working on.

That in itself is not a problem, because these things can happen when people get a bit too eager. However, when it happens over and over and over again, well, it becomes a problem. This is no longer a case of getting a bit too eager, it's a case of: "aw, they're all a bunch of uneducated fools. They don't understand anyways, so let's just do it and hope they don't notice".

Trust is earned, not bought. PGI has not put in the hours needed to earn that trust.