114 replies to this topic

[TheSteelRhino]

BlackBeltJones, on 25 June 2013 - 05:41 PM, said:

I must say that I believe balance was much better in CB than it is now - just putting that out there.
Now imagine you want a Spanish restaurant in your neighborhood, then imagine one opens up. Now you really want a Spanish restaurant because you love Spanish food but let us imagine this new Spanish restaurant is terrible, their food and service are just not up to your expectations. What do you do? Do you continue to go there and give them money knowing you will not be satisfied? Do you go expecting it to be different each time? Or do you stop going and hope that the lack of business is an indicator to them that changes need to be made, internal changes not customer changes. I mean you really want a Spanish restaurant and if this one closes then you are left with nothing right? I would argue that a bad Spanish restaurant and no Spanish restaurant in your neighborhood produce the same result. Sure it would be great if the business cared and listened to feedback and made changes that encouraged the customers to spend but that is not the customers job. As a customer we can offer feedback and money and the business is responsible for making it easy for you to do both. If MWO sinks then I will be very sad but I will not lament the loss of a great game, I will be sad to lose the promise of something that never actually came to be.

Sorry man but this is a lousy argument. First off I am in South Texas so I have more good Mexican food than I onow what to do with.

Of course you provide feedback. But do u just say u suck and leave? And complain about unclear concepts like balance? Or make meaninful statements. Most of the time I see thing like "this game sucks, you aren't getting my money". Or "we need balance". But be realistic and be constructive. If you wish to dine elsewhere then by all means go for it.

But if you look around in drop, and pick some names , and look them up on the forums. I think you will find lots of peeps that never, ever post. I doubt these forums tell the while story. I think you have a lot of folks trying the game, or have been playing that are silent and content.
And of course balance was better in CB. We had like 4 mechs and fewer weapons and features.

[Sen]

Wow, gotta love all the doom and gloom slingers on these forums. Here's a clue guys: The reason they haven't added more content [aside from the fact that they're still digitally assembling it] is that they're using the extra time to work out the balance of the core mechanic. [that's COMBAT, for you balance QQ'ers] The things you need to remember are:

1) as glaring as it may be to YOU in your infinite wisdom, PGI actually has to look at data over time and adapt. When one person complains, they don't know if that person is just a complete id10t or if they have a valid complaint.

2) Programming code is not like taking crayons to paper [I know this'll be a shock to a lot of people on these forums] Sometimes it can take weeks on weeks just to change something deeper down in the code.

3)Patience

"Yea, yea yea, patience how long'll that take"
--Ed Gruberman, Tae kwon Leap

I've been following the Battletech Universe on and off since the early 90s. When I first saw this promotion I Squee'd, and yea. . they got my money. I did *NOT*, however, actually realize what "Project Phoenix" WAS. I have since found the project Phoenix technical readouts online, and can honestly say HOLY COW that's awesome. I'm not sure I'm happy about the tech readout making the Shadow Hawk's head look like Cobra Commander from the original GI Joe cartoons. . but the concept art for the Battlemaster is impressive. Honestly, the question now becomes "If the phoenix skins are unique, are the variants going to be modified, or are they going to be the original concept drawing designs??? After all, the whole point of project phoenix was to reskin unseen mechs into "reseen" designs. I'd love to see if PGI would answer in ask the devs if they actually managed to come to a licensing agreement on the IP.

At any rate, while the haters gonna hate, I'm gonna sit back and relax. I haven't been playing MwO much. . still waiting for CW, etc. It does kinda crack me up that by October I'll most likely have 6 months of premium time banked.

Hey, I never said you were wrong about some of the issues with the game, I just said have a little patience and have a little faith. . Rome Disneyland wasn't built in a day, ya know. . .

[Kaldor]

Victor Morson, on 25 June 2013 - 01:27 PM, said:

You shouldn't be. The publisher fronted money to PGI to make the game in the first place, and they deserve to make their money back. IGP still directly funds PGI. This is a huge misunderstanding.

Even if IGP took 100% of the proceeds from this, the more money they make, the more likely they are to fund MW:O in the future.

Now that Im not trying to type on my stupid phone...

Like I said in my previous response:

There is nothing IGP does for PGI that they couldnt do with a decent small IT staff and decent co-located servers. They are simply leaching money from PGI, and as a result directly from you. They took our money, and funded whatever that other crappy turn based mech game is and god knows what else. Hookers and blow anyone?

IGP hosting is horribad. Remember when the servers went down because the HVAC unit took a sh_t in the server room? No backup plan, not even a fan in the freaking door to keep things up and running. They are in Vancouver, you mean to tell me there are no places you can get good hosting? Seattle is not that far away either if you need more options. I suggested Amazon as they have an amazing system, but a friend pointed out that you probably could get better service elsewhere as they are a high profile target that routinely gets DDOSed, etc. Look at ping times. A year ago, I was pinging around 25. On the same computer, with a faster internet connection from the same ISP, my ping has slipped to 80+ on a regular basis. Not that I cant play at that, its just a symptom of the overall problem. Distribution is also an issue, but honestly, just use a Torrent and be done with it. Im sure most of the players here understand what a torrent is and would let it seed. Lets look at the forums. Errors, slow, etc. More bad, more IGP. IGP customer service? What? I honestly think IGP is doing PGI QA and balance testing as well. How could any developer allow some of the sh_t we have seen in the last 6 months to slip out undetected?
I do plan on buying into Phoenix, but only because its a great value. I will give PGI that. I will put my money out there for them. Hell, $80 is less money than it costs to take my wife out to a nice dinner and a few drinks.

The point Im trying to make is that PGI never really needed IGP from the start. If they would have appealed directly to the fanbase they could have put all the money toward development, and its very likely the game would be in a better place today.

[Statixstorm]

This is an unhealthy relationship.
MWO beats you down all the time, kicks you in the balls, spits in your face, and you swear to yourself that it's over, you don't have to deal with this, but you find yourself crawling back for another beating.
After the phoenix project is done, and you've sworn again to never ever fall for their honeyed lies again, they'll announce a Clan founder pack and you'll find yourself crawling back, if only for a taste until the beatings start again.

Edited by Statixstorm, 26 June 2013 - 06:04 AM.

[TheSteelRhino]

Gamgee, on 25 June 2013 - 05:53 PM, said:

Except I helped found the Spanish restaurant with many others. Bad Spanish restaurant takes your money and leaves you with ecoli. The owners leave the country with millions and never pay a dime for all the crap they did to their consumers.

I'll take none, thanks. That's it though, there is a point where "promises" of what a good game could be are not enough. it has to start ******* delivering or I'm going to get mad. I don't tolerate this kind of scum bag steve behavior. It's getting to the point where if a friend asks me about this game I am telling them hell no. They want me to stop driving business away? Then start delivering on all of the promises and a good balanced game please.

Almost every game ever "had potential", it's the number one most common thing said before a game is about to hit the dirt and crash hard. Potential is never enough if not delivered, and if after a supremely long time you fail to deliver than I have to infer your going to continue to fail and are not worth investing. If you really **** up you might get me to start a mini one man crusade against you. Do what damage I can to your future profits.

They have only 6 patches to go before this game is "officially" launched, and it's not ready.

They have failed me for the last time.

I understand your feelings as I am a founder myself. I had my doubts several months ago. And then I decided to start evaluating the game that we have vs comparing to past mw titles and what I would have done. I LIKE the game. And I think it's very close. I think the heat penalties will fix boating issues. I am mostly happy with it.

They are working on pulse lasers hopefully, they will reduce chance of gauss explosion (but I am not going to cast doom and gloom just b/c I think they went to far nerfing Gauss).

As for things like PPCs. They are supposed to be a feared weapon. (Boating 4 or 6 is a bit ridiculous however so I am glad heat penalties are coming). They already addressed poptarting.

How can you say they don't listen? Sorry, why don't you wait until the full release, before casting judgements. You know when we get 12v12, UI 2.0, lobbies, CW.....If you don't want to pay then don't. But at least wait until it's out of Beta. And. Yes, it IS BETA. They make that call and you agreed to BETA terms.

Edited by Rhinehardt Ritter, 26 June 2013 - 06:21 AM.

[Corbon Zackery]

Look I agree there's issues with this game. I also spent a lot time commenting on the snail pace crawl the game is going at. I also think a lot of the weapon issues are also valued.

That being said there's a time to gripe, and a time to open your wallet give them some money then gripe latter as a paying customer when they fail to meet your expectation.

Phoenix is great idea I fully support it. I think whoever thought of it should be promoted to the VP of little town.

It shows that they have long term goals.

So if your not a founder don't miss out its only $60 to $80 bucks. I would not buy the $40 or $20 package Locust is fun toy and the Shadowhawk while cool has issues as a 55ton mech.

Plus if your a founder you get a ultra rare medal. (I know big whoop)

There are times to gripe and times to dish out cash look its a Thunderbolt.

[SquareSphere]

I'm just waiting to see what the MC prices are. IF the mechs are not available for MC purchase (still sitting on my Founders MC), this is a straight up nostalgia cash grab.

[Ragnar Darkmane]

SquareSphere, on 26 June 2013 - 06:40 AM, said:

I'm just waiting to see what the MC prices are. IF the mechs are not available for MC purchase (still sitting on my Founders MC), this is a straight up nostalgia cash grab.

They will be available for MC and C-Bills. Read the FAQ.

[kaddar]

I'm aware you can buy these mechs later individually with MC, but they're charging money for these mechs, so how do I use the money I've stored as MC on this package???

Edited by kaddar, 26 June 2013 - 07:43 AM.

[Druidika]

Kaddar: You can't.

I've done some value calculation on all four packages over here: http://mwomercs.com/...oenix-packages/

[John MatriX82]

Nice calculations Wolves.. but yet I don't care about the Locust and I'd like to chose the mechs I want.. let's say 30$ to pick up one, 50 to pick up 2 and 70 to pick up three.. like you could do with the Elite Founder. If I only want the medium, the heavy and the assault I have to get the most expensive package without any interest in the Locust at all. I am not impressed by this package, I'll gladly skip it if it stays like this.

[Bhael Fire]

Bought my Overlord package last night.

[No Smoking]

I kinda wish maybe there was less premium time and maybe tossing in some MC
like give 30 days on all the packages, but anything extra (like early bird) in MC value

If they did that, I'd be more apt to buy something. I don't might not having premium time.

[BlackBeltJones]

Rhinehardt Ritter, on 26 June 2013 - 04:29 AM, said:

Sorry man but this is a lousy argument. First off I am in South Texas so I have more good Mexican food than I onow what to do with. Of course you provide feedback. But do u just say u suck and leave? And complain about unclear concepts like balance? Or make meaninful statements. Most of the time I see thing like "this game sucks, you aren't getting my money". Or "we need balance". But be realistic and be constructive. If you wish to dine elsewhere then by all means go for it. But if you look around in drop, and pick some names , and look them up on the forums. I think you will find lots of peeps that never, ever post. I doubt these forums tell the while story. I think you have a lot of folks trying the game, or have been playing that are silent and content. And of course balance was better in CB. We had like 4 mechs and fewer weapons and features.

FYI Spanish and Mexican are very different.
What you may be missing is that the business relationship requires two parties and if a customer makes money available the business has to meet them half way (at least). I have provided constructive feedback here, just as I would with a local business I wanted to support. I can only offer to give PGI money and it is my right to withhold financial support I feel my expectations of communication are not met.

[Sen]

Quote

and it is my right to withhold financial support I feel my expectations of communication are not met.

You are absolutely 100% right.  it is your right as a consumer to vote with your dollars, and I think just about anyone on here REGARDLESS of their opinion over the situation would agree with that.

Just keep one thing in mind:  you're not the only one saying this.  There are hundreds if not THOUSANDS of people unhappy with this element of gameplay or that weapon/item/consumable.

or ECM.  OR LRMs. OR PPC boating, OR THE COLOR OF THE LEAVES ON THE TREES. . .

And, while there may be a statistical percentage of those hundreds if not thousands of people that completely agree with your opinion, the ultimate reality is that there is probably a larger percentage of people that are just as upset over how the game is coming along. . . .but that disagree with you to a greater or lesser degree as to what the problem[ s] is[are].

So you're a small development team.  You're passionate about your project, yet you have hundreds if not thousands of disgruntled fans. . every single one probably as passionate about the game as they are  SCREAMING on forums of public opinion as to why their pride and joy program is absolute shiite.  

See, it's not that PGI is ignoring you, per se.  The problem is your voice is lost in the voices of hundreds if not thousands of other disgruntled people complaining about how stupid PGI is to not understand that [disgruntled player X's] complaints are the reason the game is broken, and if they'd just do it THAT way it'd fix everything.

And if PGI DID manage to hear your voice specifically, and implement your thoughts/ideas to a tee, you can BET that hundreds if not thousands of people would be up in arms screaming about how it broke the game, or how PGI never listens to THEM. . etc. . etc, ad nauseum.

I understand you're not happy with the game in it's current state.  You have every right to feel that way, and again:  you have every right not to essentially donate money to a project you feel differs from the direction you feel it should be going in.  The only thing I ask is that you really read the above and get some perspective on PGI's side of this.  

And in all fairness, PGI has been working on balancing since CB, and has continually worked this entire time to try and make sure the combat engine is finally actually balanced BEFORE content launches.  While that makes the current incarnation of MwO boring as heck to play after awhile [I relate it to WoW's PvP, without the entire rest of the game] what I see them doing is trying to make sure the content experience doesn't end up ruined by half-adjusted imbalanced combat.

Ok, they still have work to do. . but we all know they're working on it.  again, Rome Disneyland wasn't built in a day ^^

Edited by Sen, 26 June 2013 - 01:39 PM.

[BlackBeltJones]

Sen, on 26 June 2013 - 01:35 PM, said:

You are absolutely 100% right. it is your right as a consumer to vote with your dollars, and I think just about anyone on here REGARDLESS of their opinion over the situation would agree with that.

Just keep one thing in mind: you're not the only one saying this. There are hundreds if not THOUSANDS of people unhappy with this element of gameplay or that weapon/item/consumable.

or ECM. OR LRMs. OR PPC boating, OR THE COLOR OF THE LEAVES ON THE TREES. . .

And, while there may be a statistical percentage of those hundreds if not thousands of people that completely agree with your opinion, the ultimate reality is that there is probably a larger percentage of people that are just as upset over how the game is coming along. . . .but that disagree with you to a greater or lesser degree as to what the problem[ s] is[are].

So you're a small development team. You're passionate about your project, yet you have hundreds if not thousands of disgruntled fans. . every single one probably as passionate about the game as they are SCREAMING on forums of public opinion as to why their pride and joy program is absolute shiite.

See, it's not that PGI is ignoring you, per se. The problem is your voice is lost in the voices of hundreds if not thousands of other disgruntled people complaining about how stupid PGI is to not understand that [disgruntled player X's] complaints are the reason the game is broken, and if they'd just do it THAT way it'd fix everything.

And if PGI DID manage to hear your voice specifically, and implement your thoughts/ideas to a tee, you can BET that hundreds if not thousands of people would be up in arms screaming about how it broke the game, or how PGI never listens to THEM. . etc. . etc, ad nauseum.

I understand you're not happy with the game in it's current state. You have every right to feel that way, and again: you have every right not to essentially donate money to a project you feel differs from the direction you feel it should be going in. The only thing I ask is that you really read the above and get some perspective on PGI's side of this.

And in all fairness, PGI has been working on balancing since CB, and has continually worked this entire time to try and make sure the combat engine is finally actually balanced BEFORE content launches. While that makes the current incarnation of MwO boring as heck to play after awhile [I relate it to WoW's PvP, without the entire rest of the game] what I see them doing is trying to make sure the content experience doesn't end up ruined by half-adjusted imbalanced combat.

Ok, they still have work to do. . but we all know they're working on it. again, Rome Disneyland wasn't built in a day ^^

Excellent point and I agree completely. Largely my complaint is with communication , I appreciate the development team can't cater to my desires (exclusively) without denying other fans their due voice. I have distilled my complaint to communication simply for the points you illustrated so well. I do not need things to be 'my way' so long as I have an appreciation for why things are they way they are - as long as this info comes direct from the dev team I would never complain. I understand I may want things that are unrealistic for any number of reasons and it is my expectation the the dev team should be open enough about the project to make clear why certain things may be unachievable. For me personally I can appreciate almost anything, even if it is not what I want or what I would do, so long as it is made clear why things are moving in that direction.

[Sen]

Communication is the hardest thing anyone can ask of any team trying to whirlwind production on a project while simultaneously trying to balance it against the customer's expectations, in addition to the expectations of the design team. There is hardly time for them to communicate with each other internally, and that is usually limited to specific technical issues, goals, and deadlines.

While I don't work in the software development industry, I work for a VERY large company that has a similar development/production process, and we have very similar issues with communication. I have the distinct pleasure to be direct customer support for one of our largest customers, and *BELIEVE ME* I can understand your frustrations with lack of communication. On the other side of that, I understand just how swamped under our various production teams are.

If PGI is anything like my company my guess is that they'd LOVE to have more comprehensive information sessions with their customer base [us], but between trying to meet the deadlines, fix bugs, add content. . and then what's ok for official release and what they want to hold back [sometimes for suspense, sometimes for other issues --Ex: Orion]. . it gets to be a lot. Garth has done a lot to try and keep the community informed, but I'm sure he has other duties and other venues he needs to run P.R. and promotion for.

And, let's face it: I'm sure you've seen the negative comments around this thread. . can any of us BLAME them for being afraid to set foot on "our" turf?

Ultimately, to quote Morpheus "Rest Neo, the answers are coming". CW is just around the corner, and then we'll have enough information to know if we should implement the victory party or the development lynching party.

Edited by Sen, 26 June 2013 - 06:10 PM.

[BlackBeltJones]

Sen we should get a beer sometime. You are quite articulate which helps the fact that you're right. One reason my frustration gets elevated is because I too work for a company with similar production, development, and communication demands; I personally take pride in the fact that I (and sometime the company) exceed at those things. It is hard to not hold others to a standard that I impose on myself, not that it is always reasonable but I do feel that if I (and the ***** company I work for) can continually raise the bar by exceeding our customers and associates expectations then a company bold enough to reincarnate Mechwarrior should be able to do so with ease. There is also another game currently demonstrating what excellent communication is and I admit I, certainly unfairly, do hold PGI to a similar standard.

Added: I know the attitude here could intimidate the Dev team and hinder viable communication but I will never accept that as a valid reason for them to avoid the site. I firmly believe that doing the right thing is a easy as a single action - in this case no matter how difficult or frustrating I believe the Devs need to open communication on this forum and there will never be a substitute for that. They need to suck it up and be the 'grown-ups' if need be and make their voice heard here. If we here are a collection of juvenile minds it would seem a loud and assertive voice is exactly what we need.

Edited by BlackBeltJones, 26 June 2013 - 06:42 PM.

[repete]

Excellent discussion Sen and BlackBeltJones...

Sen, on 26 June 2013 - 06:09 PM, said:

Communication is the hardest thing anyone can ask...

I personally wonder what PGI considers their "community"? If it is 'all players', then the majority of the "community" cannot be engaged in a two way conversation. If their "community" is the subset of people who make an effort to engage with PGI beyond the game, whether it is via:

• These forums
  
• Social media (Twitter/Facebook)
  
• Video streams such as Twitch
  
• Podcasts such as NGNG
  
• Others?

...How are the numbers of the "community" distributed across those? I'd have to imagine that these forums get the most engagement out of any other avenue. And yet I have often seen the forums dismissed as:




1) Not representative
2) Overly negative

On #1...While that is probably true, what avenue other than the forum is MORE representative? As for #2, WHY are the forums as negative as they are? Personally I wonder how much of Garth's job is supposed to involve the forums. I understand it can be soul sucking. I read posts on a number of occasions where it has been said (By whom I don't recall I'm afraid) that "[...PGI doesn't really like engaging in the forums because they are so negative...]".

My question time and time again is...Is the Community Manager managing the community? The answer may depend on who the community is...I see lots of posters of "Garth on this Twitch streaming event" or "Garth on that podcast". I rarely see Garth in the forums, though I don't know if this is because I'm looking in the wrong place, his posts are lost in the shear number of (I don't know how many) forum posts. I wonder....How many people watch a Twitch streaming event? Could be high. But I'd guess it is lower than the number of people on the forums each day. I do recall him saying on a previous NGNG that a large amount of his time was taken up with forum PMs. Perhaps managing all these avenues of communication is too much for a single person. Perhaps some of them are 'best effort' / 'get as much done as you reasonably can'...

Now I hate to say this next bit. Take it with a grain of salt or whatever. This is second-hand hearsay, but the conviction with which the person shared this with me, I feel it sufficient to share this...After listening to a live NGNG podcaste a couple of months back, a number of people were sitting around complaining about whatever the problems were at the time, and the lack of comms on those problems. A person in channel said they'd heard or read (Don't remember which) that two of either Russ, Bryan, or Paul "[...weren't real fans of the community...]". He used stronger language. Now again, I hate to share this. It's not like I've heard it first-hand. I hope the person who said it may read this and be able to cite what they were quoting. BUT...I share it because, in my opinion, it matches what we see in the way of comms from PGI, e.g. Russ' (Now scrubbed) "bud" tweet.

I hear so many posts saying "We'd be happy if only PGI would tell us". When I see this, I know it is not just me....For all the dorks who reply and say "FFS...It's just a ******* game".

Edited by repete, 26 June 2013 - 07:24 PM.

[Reported for Inappropriate Name]

i'll wait until july to maky me decision, pgi has two patches to impress me to give them money instead of my computer.

apparently we don't represent the mechwarrior community even though they ask us for money, so we'll see. I mean i do understand what they mean by that comment, and I understand that it's their game and i have zero entitlement to dictate how they shape it because i spent money, but i feel at this point they really have to convince me within the realm of reason that it's worth it.

Edited by Battlecruiser, 26 June 2013 - 07:32 PM.