1105 replies to this topic

[Talrich]

Bryan,

I'm rooting for you an MWO, but I don't know why you put up posts like this that are going to be taken badly by many MW and MWO fans. I don't say this to hurt your feelings, but if you don't know why you're setting people off then perhaps you should ask someone to read your stuff who is able to be honest with you.

A few examples:
3PV has been a great success? Usually I don't have to apologize for my great successes.
You don't have a problem; it's just communication? Tell your wife that. Tell her that you're right, but just failing to communicate, and have fun sleeping on the couch.
You referenced a vocal minority. That phrasing is very dismissive to your fans. Why?
People forget about the bigger picture? Again it sounds like an acusation that anyone who posts is narrow minded and you're not. It's just not constructive.

I wish you and all of PGI luck, but I really find these sorts of posts baffling.

[InRev]

InnerSphereNews, on 27 August 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

I think I’ll start with a lesson from my wife: Never say never, or always. I have to agree.

I was going to make a clever comment about how this must have made for interesting wedding vows, followed by tying it in to this game's development history, but judging by the pace and efficiency with which posts are being nuked from this thread, I decided against it.

Instead, I am going to politely ask (since apparently PGI's skin is diaphanous) how this claim:

InnerSphereNews, on 27 August 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

After releasing 3PV we saw an immediate improvement in our target demographic, with a good bump in new player retention!

can be made with only a week's worth of data. A week is hardly sufficient to judge retention, is it not?

Edit note: Beaten by Tennex, as usual! Rawr!

Edited by InRev, 27 August 2013 - 03:40 PM.

[Tennex]

Ocilfa, on 27 August 2013 - 01:41 PM, said:

So...Orion next month?file:///C:/Users/Will%20Ogilvie/Downloads/LET%20ME%20BE%20IN%20THE%20GAME-Orion.jpg

ah good point monthly updates usually have the mech of the month.. wonder what it will be

[DeathofSelf]

Tennex, on 27 August 2013 - 01:42 PM, said:

what i want to know is, how within a week they already have information on player retention and 3PV.

are their standards for retaining players only 1 week? (since thats only how long its been since 3PV has been implemented)

Their magic 8 ball told them so

[Karl Split]

Would have liked some timeframe for 1pv only queue for us competitive players tbh. But I guess theres no place in free to play for serious business.

[Ravensshadow]

Spoiler

InnerSphereNews, on 27 August 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

September Creative Developer Update

What an August! We released some really big features in 12v12 and 3PV: Both have been a great success and delivered on our goals of adding more action, tactics, and deeper gameplay (12v12), while continuing to make the game appeal to a broader audience of gamers (3PV). After releasing 3PV we saw an immediate improvement in our target demographic, with a good bump in new player retention!

We continue to see a steady increase in online players, with more new MechWarriors joining us every day. Registrations continue to be strong with a very nice increase during the month of August. Our Phoenix program was a big success and we’re very excited to deliver the Phoenix `Mechs in October!

Behind the scenes, we have been working hard on UI 2.0, CW, and Clans. Our first UI 2.0 preview build was just delivered to me this week, and I’m really excited to get a version up on public test. This new UI framework is the gate keeper for almost everything we are working on right now, including Community Warfare (more revealed a bit later in this update).

Balance

Game balance continues to take a top priority as we work to keep the game tuned and balanced with an ever evolving meta-game. Expect to see more tweaks to weapons in the next few patches, especially after we introduce some more Host State Rewind (HSR) fixes in a near future patch. These HSR tweaks fix a few known bugs and will help improve overall hit detection for most players.

Charity

Our Sarah’s Mech charity drive concluded with over $122,000 being raised for the Canadian Cancer Society. I had the pleasure of meeting Jon and his family, who visited our studio in Vancouver and IGP’s offices in Montreal.

Economics

As for the economics, we’ve heard some talk about the reduction in C-Bill rewards. As previous replies to the community in the latest ATD have stated, we needed to rein in some of the rewards a bit as they had grown beyond our original thresholds by about 16%. This is normal and common as a game evolves and players become more efficient. The addition of 12v12 also required a tuning pass to lower the earning by around 13% to account for an additional 8 players on the battlefield. The future vision for CB and XP rewards includes a more granular, role based approach currently in design and development. These expanded earnings will reward players directly for performing specific roles, allowing them to distinguish themselves.

Some economic math from our telemetry data:

• Average match time is 8.4 minutes.
  
• Average CB/match is 79,069.
  
• Average CB/hour is 564,778 if you only have 1 BattleMech to use.
  
• New players can earn 7,981,686 in cadet bonuses during their first 3.5 hours in addition to between 1-3 million in regular game earnings.

[color=#CCCCCC]It’s important to note that new or inexperienced players will be below this average, while experienced or veteran players will be above this. Player’s with premium time and/or a Hero Mech can expect to better still. New players can earn enough money to buy several light or medium Mechs with just their cadet bonus, or can opt to buy 1 or 2 heavies, or 1 assault. In fact a new player can buy their very first Mech within just a handful of matches, begin upgrading and acquiring new permanent equipment for future Mechs.[/color]

[color=#CCCCCC]If players so wish, they can even increase C-Bill earnings substantially by exiting matches if they are destroyed early, and jumping into a new one.[/color]

[color=#CCCCCC]For example:[/color]

[color=#CCCCCC]If your Mech is destroyed to a roaming band of Jenners early on, you can jump out of that match and into a new one right away – potentially doubling your C-Bills to 1.2 million per hour! This cuts down your time to purchase new Mechs and equipment.[/color]

[color=#CCCCCC]Like game balance, we are constantly evaluating the economic environment and will continue to make small tweaks to keep the economics balanced.[/color]

[color=#CCCCCC] Community[/color]

[color=#CCCCCC]I also wanted to take time to clear up a few laundry items, mostly to do with communication and promises. I think I’ll start with a lesson from my wife: Never say never, or always. I have to agree. Even though best intentions and plans for future designs and direction of the game can take a different course as we develop them, we have learned to avoid using words of certainty whenever possible. We’ve seen these type of words frame our messaging in a way that some community members either see this as a promise, or guarantee. I want to always remind our community that we do our best to describe both our vision and roadmap, and that sometimes we are going to make decisions that you may not agree with. MechWarrior Online is constantly evolving and changing. It’s a living breathing project that will never stay still, rather react to players, analytics and external influences, like new trends in gaming.[/color]

[color=#CCCCCC]The community is very large, and represents a broad segment of players. There are vocal minorities and silent majorities on all subjects and we always have to balance between these groups. We have found that analytics and player profiling has helped us identify the needs of most demographics and while it may seem that we either a) don’t listen or are making choices that go against the “players” opinion, this is simply not the case. People can become focused on narrow aspects of the game, and forget about the bigger picture. We all have favourite weapons, builds, Mechs that we want to be the best they can be, but oftentimes we can overly focus on what affects us, and forget about other players with other Mechs, builds, and so on.[/color]

[color=#CCCCCC]You will have already noticed a new form of communication since spring, largely due in part to focusing our efforts on the Ask the Devs format, and the monthly Creative Director updates. I have also changed how we discuss future major designs, keeping them closer to the chest until we are ready to make a presentation to the community. A good example is how we handle the UI 2.0 introduction and discussion. A lot of player feedback drove the design of UI 2.0, and we view it as a great success in communication and community involvement in the design process. You can expect the same when we reveal our Community Warfare design at the launch event! This presentation will reveal some of the features our core audience has been after for some time now, and we’re very excited to show you what’s been in the works.[/color]

[color=#CCCCCC]I also see a lot of “IGP vs PGI” or “IGP’s to blame”. This is unfair and simply not true. We are partners, and we work very closely to decide the direction of the game. Ultimately PGI has to approve everything as the license holder, so laying blame at IGP’s doorstep is misguided. IGP has an absolutely amazing team of dedicated, passionate individuals, and they are a large part of making sure MWO is available for everyone to enjoy![/color]

[color=#CCCCCC] Policy[/color]

[color=#CCCCCC]That last piece of housekeeping is less enjoyable to discuss but I feel the need to remind all of our members to respect both your fellow players and the staff at IGP and PGI. We have seen an alarming number of verbal, and written threats directed at staff. These threats, whether idle or simple jokes will be treated as real, with local authorities being notified. There is no situation on earth that warrants these attacks, so I kindly remind you to think twice before posting anything that might be viewed in this light. Behind each of the names you see on the forums or Facebook or Twitter, are real people. Please keep that in mind - we do![/color]

[color=#CCCCCC] Launch Event[/color]

[color=#CCCCCC]With that out of the way, I’m really looking forward to the Launch Event in San Francisco, I’m very excited. We had an excellent response to our event invites and I think we’ll see some really competitive teams going for the win. It will be good to see some familiar faces, and you will get to meet a bunch of developers, some of whom will be first time attendees at a public MWO event. That’s about it for now! September is going to be a really busy month, and I’m looking forward to launch and all the new features coming live in the next 90 days! It’s a very exciting time for MWO as we deliver some long desired community features! [/color]

[color=#CCCCCC]Cheers,[/color]
[color=#CCCCCC]Bryan Ekman[/color]
[color=#CCCCCC]

[/color]

3pv a great success?

It is an utter failure.

Edited by Destined, 27 August 2013 - 01:55 PM.
spoiler tags

[3rdworld]

If only they understood that giving details on upcoming features, getting feedback, discussing direction with players, makes them look forward to the future, spend money.

instead, we devote half a September update to a wrist slap and explaining why they don't really care what the forums think.

The only interesting data is that they feel 80k cbills a match is adequate when a good mech can cost ~15 mil. Guess they are okay with >24hr grind time for a good mech.

Edited by 3rdworld, 27 August 2013 - 01:49 PM.

[stVillain]

Quote

... [color=#EEEEEE] After releasing 3PV we saw an immediate improvement in our target demographic, with a good bump in new player retention!...[/color]

What a load of....
ya....

and the fact that 3rd person has been up on MWO for a week on the outside. Does that mean that you were loosing new players faster then in a week?

that might be the saddest thing i've heard about a game i like.

[Xeno Phalcon]

This is why you guys catch so much damn flak: very little in this update and mods going nuts deleting posts left and right.

Basically came down to "We are not fighting with IGP" "We will call the cops on you" and "Your long grind is here to stay". The charity and launch stuff is good, more info on UI2.0 never hurts, but everytime someone says the grind is okay I just have to shake my head in disbelief. (Especially as the "upside" in that part of the update is , you can always launch with other mechs to help make more cbills!)

Did anyone stop to think that having to play for three hours non stop to afford double heat sinks is just mental?

[Redshift2k5]

How does the average CB earnings for a NEW player compare to the global average?

[Prezimonto]

Edit: In reference to Tennex on later page 1.

I would like to know how they value one week of metrics when in the past they'll collect MONTHS of information before doing simple balance/meta adjustments.

Edited by Prezimonto, 27 August 2013 - 01:59 PM.

[VagGR]

thank you for update, much appreciated...a bit generic but with launch coming up i can understand that. at least it is straight forward..

regarding 3pv..all you had to do was tell from the start what you are telling us now. "attract" new players not "help" new players, there would still be bad reactions but at least you would have been honest. all that "help new players see their legs and orientate and such" was really unnecessary. in any case 3pv is here to stay so keep a keen eye on, it most people may not be using it but i have already see a few players taking advantage of it. so please dont let it ruin the game.

please keep in mind that some times except the vocal minorities and the silent majorities there are vocal majorities. also the largest part of your community are not school kiddies most of us are 30+ years old, so please treat us like such.

there is one thing we all want a good mechwarrior game.

[Warge]

Tennex, on 27 August 2013 - 01:42 PM, said:

they already have information on player retention

First enter -> if player still here after several days -> retention

Tennex, on 27 August 2013 - 01:42 PM, said:

and 3PV.

New players just don't know how to turn off 3PV.

Tennex, on 27 August 2013 - 01:42 PM, said:

are their standards for retaining players only 1 week?

What else you expect they should say?

[Hellen Wheels]

It is nice to see a new copy writer on board, at least. That's a step in the right direction. Good luck with it.

[DoktorVivi]

Tennex, on 27 August 2013 - 01:42 PM, said:

what i want to know is, how within a week they already have information on player retention and 3PV.

are their standards for retaining players only 1 week? (since thats only how long its been since 3PV has been implemented)

If a certain percentage of new players played less than a week before leaving, and that percentage dropped, you have better new player retention. Now, it's not much better, but it's technically better. They could just all start leaving after a week or so instead of after an hour or a day.

[Kraven Kor]

For the love of god just give me my founders money back because you have completely failed to address our concerns, once again, in a manner that is not essentially telling us "Deal with it."

I've been polite, I've been constructive, I've been patient, and I just can't do it anymore.

I have filed grievances with the BBB and CPBC. Go ahead, delete my posts, do whatever, just give me my money back and take my name off of your products' credits, please, and I will go away. I promise.

[Crazyeyes244]

The last AtD was more informative than this update... and it is also disappointing to hear that we won't see any new info until this time next month.

InnerSphereNews, on 27 August 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

September Creative Developer Update

What an August! We released some really big features in 12v12 and 3PV: Both have been a great success and delivered on our goals of adding more action, tactics, and deeper gameplay (12v12), while continuing to make the game appeal to a broader audience of gamers (3PV). After releasing 3PV we saw an immediate improvement in our target demographic, with a good bump in new player retention!

We continue to see a steady increase in online players, with more new MechWarriors joining us every day. Registrations continue to be strong with a very nice increase during the month of August. Our Phoenix program was a big success and we’re very excited to deliver the Phoenix `Mechs in October!

[color=#CCCCCC]

[/color]


Just how exactly can you tell that with only one week of it being out? I would also like to see the metrics of player loss due to it. Not saying its a huge amount, but still, I would like to see how the two balance.

Honestly this just sounds like a statement aimed to validate the reasoning behind adding it in in the first place.

[Prezimonto]

Homeless Bill, on 27 August 2013 - 01:41 PM, said:

Please tell us the new UI is going to be in at launch.

The one thing I'll note on a positive side: the pushed both 12v12 and 3PV public after only one day of a few public test hours each... and both with in what... one or two patches? I think, IF they can push UI 2.0 to public test before launch we'll see it at launch on the mainline servers.

Edited by Prezimonto, 27 August 2013 - 02:05 PM.

[CarpetShark]

InnerSphereNews, on 27 August 2013 - 01:17 PM, said:

What an August! We released some really big features in 12v12 and 3PV: Both have been a great success

Edited by CarpetShark, 27 August 2013 - 01:56 PM.

[Ravensshadow]

I am curious how you come to the conclusion that the vocal pne are the minority if this so called majority is silent?

No we the vocal one represent the majority... we are the most who will influence blogs and podcasts.... Not this Silent Minority.