342 replies to this topic

[Capp]

My question is... why do we so often hear the bombshells from third party sources sending customers and Devs alike scrambling into the air raid shelters?

Is it a requirement to give these 3rd party sources "exclusive" news-breaking opportunities in order to get an interview? Cause... I can kind of understand that if that's how the business works, if you gotta play the game or be ignored.

But if that's not the case, why aren't we hearing stuff from you guys before some article starts another forum meltdown?

[BlackSquirrel]

Lol did people really send out threats?

Holy **** balls batman this is a game! Calm the **** down!

You may need to find a new hobby if you devolve into sending personal threats over it...All for a few bucks too.

[MentalPatient]

Thanks Bryan for your official response, I am happy to hear I will not have to pay a subscription in order to take part in CW. In saying that, I completely understand the need to ensure a steady income is provided, in the form of premium content subscription. In order to provide the masses with all those mechs of the battletech universe they need a long term income. To me I know why the price seems to be high compared other FTP games. MWO is a game which in terms of visuals matches many AAA titles, and yet, it is a niche genre game. Due to this, it will never attract the kind of income that those titles would, but it has undoubtedly attracted some portion of newcomers. The upkeep required to make this kind of game must be comparable to other big titles, and thus the cost per unit compared to other games will have to be higher, due to the reduced number of payers.

The only problem I foresee here is, as time goes on, subscribers will likely fall off, meaning prices will need to go up, and this will further scare of subscribers leading to an eventual collapse at some crucial point. I wish there was some way to tap into the entire community when it comes to paying for the game. Unfortunately the prices of some of the items prohibit many people from spending money on MWO, which is sad, especially when those people want to support the game in some way. There needs to be some way to allow those player to get payed for content. More sales are a good way to achieve this IMO, and make them more accessible. You need to tap the entire player base in order to survive, or else I predict this wonderful project might not last.

[PropagandaWar]

Nikohki, on 08 April 2013 - 12:14 PM, said:

Don't know if you tried this, but If you put in the ark codes you get 6 more slots free (plus other stuff). Also, you can't sell the starter items, but you can break them down in the salvage matrix. I'm sorry you had to lug that stuff around all this time, bud. Lastly, as you level up, your inventory gets additional slots.

good to know and thanks. I did see the codes. Not a terrible game. I have a friend to play with. I hope those cars eventually get some guns to shoot the big guys with.

[Michael Costanza]

Krzysztof z Bagien, on 08 April 2013 - 10:01 AM, said:

I don't mean to be picky or something, but how come you can post something on Twitter, but can't log in to your MWO page account and post something here too?

I don't mean to be picky, but why couldn't the developers release info on community warfare here in parallel with the interview? If you know you're in an interview and you're going to talk about community warfare or clans or some other detail, an official post should also be made in these forums.

[AlexEss]

Tennex, on 08 April 2013 - 10:14 AM, said:

think of free private matches as an investment.

the pot to grow your competitive community in

Well it is a matter of cost... It is hard to guarantee the extra income to cover the cost of the private matches (as it sees to be a cost for PGI to do that right now) from a financial pov it is much better to risk loosing a little in the grand scheme but know that you at least remain in the black per match then to give all the matches away and hope that the people will be nice enough to put forth the extra money.

[Jojobird]

I would just like to add that I'd gladly pay premium time if that would allow me to have a private match with a friend (friends). Surely you guys wanted to play a best out of 7 match with the guy sitting across the room from you? Duelling for eternal glory is just plain fun for us competitive players. (on another note, same as seeing your ELO, yes we don't NEED to, but we want to )

Edited by Jojobird, 08 April 2013 - 01:17 PM.

[Phalanx100bc]

While I'm glad Bryan also sees the passion this community has for MWO, don't forget that MANY of us are also PAYING ADULT CUSTOMERS with the understanding that this is a work in progress. ( and from the looks if it we will be paying into MWO even more in the future as CW coalesces ).

That being said, a certain amount of customer service is appreciated insofar as information on game progression and timely resolution of issues. Which in turn gives us the confidence to keep spending real money and convincing others what a great product this will be.

Edited by Phalanx100bc, 08 April 2013 - 01:31 PM.

[Mortenson]

Thanks for the clarification.

Really sorry to hear you had to deal with that sort of crap.

[Pertz]

I'm really sorry, and for some reason surprised that you folks received threats regarding MWO. I guess this is the internet, so there are always people who don't understand that there are real people on the receiving end of things. But if you're reading this: please alert the local authorities to those folks, in addition to banning them, of course. No one wants them to be part of our community, and no one, especially you guys, deserves to put up with them (no matter what your decisions are).

[Darkfire66]

Just ban people who made threats and suck it up. You make choices that make people that angry, you have to wonder if you are making the right choices.

[HammerSwarm]

Glad to see more of the time table being set and more features being revealed.

I would disagree however and say that people who want to be in factions may also want to battle for territories. Without being in a merc corp I still want to be battling the enemies of my house for territories and benefits.

[Droz]

Excellent clarification. Thank you.

I only have one major concern with what is being said though:

You mentioned that to be part of a privately hosted game, you are planning on requiring an individual that may be part of that game to be a premium member. My gripe with that is not all members of a unit may be premium, and restricting that is counter-intuitive to setting up a match with like players.

i.e. Team A has 12 members, and team B has 12 members, all wanting to setup a custom match in CW for territorial control. Team A has 6 premium members while team B has 7 premium members. All others are non-premium. You are now forcing these teams into a situation where they cannot use their full base of players to play a match for CW.

I can't say I'm very happy about that idea at all. I can understand requiring at least the match hosts to have premium time, or perhaps even a minimum of a lance as premium for each side, but to require both sides to have complete premium membership might as well require all members of a unit to be on premium time just to play the game.

Everything else is superb, and I see no issues at all with requiring a fee for unit setup and such. Excellent post otherwise.

[Phalanx100bc]

Darkfire66, on 08 April 2013 - 01:28 PM, said:

Just ban people who made threats and suck it up. You make choices that make people that angry, you have to wonder if you are making the right choices.

I find it interresting that dirty laundry like "death threats" can be divulged, yet game progression and a buisness-like explanation of why so many problems have yet to be tended to are kept so close to the chest.

[matux]

So are you going to start including P2P now in your google ads? continuing to mislead people, e.g the AAA game line

[Hexxus]

Bryan Ekman, on 08 April 2013 - 09:35 AM, said:

• A small one-time MC and/or CB fee to create a Merc Corp*.
  
• Some aspects of CW will reward players with MC, we are considering a Premium Account requirement to participate in these rewards. This will not prevent non-paying customers to participate in all aspects of CW with their friends and teammates.
  
• If we decided to launch Private Matches, they will likely require a Premium Account to cover costs of hosting a match on our hardware.

Forcing people to pay if they want to start their own clan will straight up stop many from doing so, sure, but that is also a lot of players who just will not bother with the game if they can't group up with their friends or engage in the metagame. Yes, it will keep your costs down, but at the same time, you will be losing income from players who don't bother looking past the "Free to play, except for X, Y, Z, and features A through F." scheme you guys have going.

Instead of straight up blocking or segregating the player base into those who pay, and those who don't, what you should be doing is grouping everyone into "People who MIGHT pay", and then make the game something worthy of our money. Doing things like offering a MC reward to subscribers who take part in CW, but none to non-subscribers will just further the gap between these two groups, and eventually, those who don't pay are going to get bored, and leave. What you should do instead of offering MC is to actually create content that people would happily spend money on, like cosmetics and shortcuts, and then offer these as rewards for CW, while still requiring MC to apply them. Then you can have all the tournaments you want, and still make money off of people who buy MC to slap on their shiney new decals.

And charging for private matches? This is probably the final nail in the coffin for any sort of competitive environment MW:O could have had.

Oh well, game COULD have been good, but PGI is more interested in the quick buck they can make now, rather then looking at the big picture. Have happily spent $0 on this game, and after all this underhanded activity from PGI, I never plan to change that.

[DashFire61]

PropagandaWar, on 08 April 2013 - 11:36 AM, said:

You want the base game. Get it for free. You want the DLC? Well its DLC so HA! PGI is a godsend compaired to companies like CAPCOM. I like that I'll be getting something for premium other than c-bills. Feels Good! Feeelz Real good!


Um no they don't. PGI's closest competitor is HAWKEN and that game is Shmeh beyond Shmeh sooooo..... Yeah have fun with that one.

P.S. LoL is not MWO.

umm hawken is definitely not their only competitor, they have many and they ALL offer free private matches, and currently Hawken is off to a much better start with their game. The reason i'm here instead of there is i have faith in PGI, but their are certain things that will alone make me not want to play this game, having to pay for private matches is one of them (at least if i can't get a 3rd party alternative, without third party matchmaking having to pay would be an immediate shut off got me.)

[DashFire61]

AlexEss, on 08 April 2013 - 01:14 PM, said:

Well it is a matter of cost... It is hard to guarantee the extra income to cover the cost of the private matches (as it sees to be a cost for PGI to do that right now) from a financial pov it is much better to risk loosing a little in the grand scheme but know that you at least remain in the black per match then to give all the matches away and hope that the people will be nice enough to put forth the extra money.

private matches don't cost extra, they would just be launching in public which would take up the same resources. end of story, there are no buts.

[Krzysztof z Bagien]

MrPenguin, on 08 April 2013 - 10:54 AM, said:

Theirs a phone app for twitter, there isn't a phone app for the mechwarrior forums.

I sometimes browse MWO forums (as well as many others) on my Nokia E52. It's 2013, any semi-decent phone can be used to browse the internet.
I don't use twitter, facebook and other simillar stuff and I come here know what's going on with the game. But what seems to be most obvious place to look for MWO info - www.mwomercs.com is actually the last place that kind of info is posted. Many times not by the staff, but by players themselvs. See, there's a forum made especially for posting devs interviews, where last post has been started almost exactly a year ago.

[Ryvucz]

Thanks for the clarification!