304 replies to this topic

[carl kerensky]

tucsonspeed6, on 10 September 2013 - 10:26 AM, said:

You wonder why they don't post here and then one line later take the canary quote out of context to make them look bad.

I understand that there are legitimate concerns about the state of the game. Honestly my take is that they are in fact in over their heads, but I don't see that changing the final product in any way other than the delivery date. When they said that CW would come out this summer they didn't foresee many of the technical hurdles that were in the way. That's no reason to take it personally.

More disturbing, however, is the state of these forums. This place is a toxic waste dump of negativity. It's depressing to see grown men acting like irrational teenagers. At a certain point it stops being a reaction to any news from PGI but rather the whole situation reverses to where you know the reaction first ( outrage ) but are simply looking for the trigger. Brian could have used the metaphor of a litmus test, and you or someone else would have gotten bent out of shape over fantasies of being dunked in acid.

And here is my plea to all of those toxic elements here and to no one individual in particular:

Be adults for crying out loud. I know a lot of the players here are adult men with wives and kids, yet I can't imagine any man's children looking up to him if they were to see these public tantrums of "But...they LIED!" Or "I'm not giving them a penny until I get my way!" Have some dignity for Gods sake. It's embarrassing. A man this passionate about something should be able to keep his composure, or at the very worst be able to wash his hands of the game completely and walk away silently. Pick one. The hand wringing and melodrama is pathetic.

Let me ask you this. Why is a forum created? Feedback. No kidding. Ive read hundreds of posts by people with some amazing feedback and as this ship rolls on it seems to me these ideas and critiques aren't being taken seriously. At times just plain ignored. I have invested money into this game. Ive waited 10 years for mechwarrior to come back to life. Hell ya I'm passionate about it. So were all the other founders. Passionate. Don't mistake passion about something for what you are deluding. Im no robot that lives in pollyanna ville. I will give praise went its warranted. Right now its not. Period. There was a certain direction that PGI had insisted it was going and it conformed to my own vision of how Mechwarrior should play. It looked very much like we were going down a good development road in closed beta. Now? Whole change of story there. Just go back and re read some issues on how they were handled. Serious signs of LACK of communication and at worst just plain stupefying decisions. Let me make it perfectly clear. I WANT this game to succeed. So I will be vocal about that. What a forum is created for. That very vocal crowd has already made PGI think twice on 3 Pv. So this forum full of passionate people will continue on putting PGI under a microscope until we can meet in the middle and make MWO a huge success.

Ck

[Aidan]

tucsonspeed6, on 10 September 2013 - 10:26 AM, said:

You wonder why they don't post here and then one line later take the canary quote out of context to make them look bad.

I understand that there are legitimate concerns about the state of the game. Honestly my take is that they are in fact in over their heads, but I don't see that changing the final product in any way other than the delivery date. When they said that CW would come out this summer they didn't foresee many of the technical hurdles that were in the way. That's no reason to take it personally.

More disturbing, however, is the state of these forums. This place is a toxic waste dump of negativity. It's depressing to see grown men acting like irrational teenagers. At a certain point it stops being a reaction to any news from PGI but rather the whole situation reverses to where you know the reaction first ( outrage ) but are simply looking for the trigger. Brian could have used the metaphor of a litmus test, and you or someone else would have gotten bent out of shape over fantasies of being dunked in acid.

And here is my plea to all of those toxic elements here and to no one individual in particular:

Be adults for crying out loud. I know a lot of the players here are adult men with wives and kids, yet I can't imagine any man's children looking up to him if they were to see these public tantrums of "But...they LIED!" Or "I'm not giving them a penny until I get my way!" Have some dignity for Gods sake. It's embarrassing. A man this passionate about something should be able to keep his composure, or at the very worst be able to wash his hands of the game completely and walk away silently. Pick one. The hand wringing and melodrama is pathetic.

Look mister maturity, withholding money from this development effort when you think it is going in a wrong direction is not pathetic, melodramatic, or un-dignified. It is simply being a smart consumer. Would you buy a pickup truck with a squirrel on a conveyor belt for an engine?

[MustrumRidcully]

Quote

More disturbing, however, is the state of these forums. This place is a toxic waste dump of negativity. It's depressing to see grown men acting like irrational teenagers.

Yes, it has gotten pretty negative. What might be the reason for that, people loving the game so much that they must make a counter-point on the forums?

But grown men acting like irrational teenagers? You have just an optimistic view of real, grown up people act.

But I don't think people are irrational if they question the ability of this game to be a success and deliver on the promises that made people spend money on it.
Two major points:
1) Promises have been turned into "that was our position at the time".
2) Features that were announced to have been in the game 6 months or longer ago are still not in the game, and we haven't even seen any previews, any promotional material, pretty much nothing.

Also, I don't think that balance concerns are irrational, as long as they are founded on more than opinion and instead experience and analysis. And considering that even well-founded critique is not seen reflected (I am not talking "Implemented 5 minutes after I press "SUBMIT" but "talked about after it being circulated for months and "counter-analysed" in a non-superficial form).

Unless you're saying it's irrational because people have too high expectations and they should know better. But then I am afraid no one here is rational, neither the "white knights" nor the "haters", because the haters seem to believe PGI should have achieved more by now and white knights because they believe PGI will still deliver on promises and features despite PGI already abandoning certain promises and features.

[DirePhoenix]

Aidan, on 10 September 2013 - 12:00 PM, said:

Look mister maturity, withholding money from this development effort when you think it is going in a wrong direction is not pathetic, melodramatic, or un-dignified. It is simply being a smart consumer. Would you buy a pickup truck with a squirrel on a conveyor belt for an engine?

I didn't buy the Founder's or Phoenix packages because of some deluded notion that my money is going to give me some extra "voice" or that this game is going to happen only due to my support. This game was already funded before the Founder's Program. It was going to be made regardless of what or how much people have bought (now, whether or not those purchases shaped the development may be another story).

I am a Founder because they offered something I wanted to purchase even when the game was still in early development. Nothing more. No "cause". No soapbox. They had items for sale and I wanted them. Same with the Phoenix package. They're selling new models of the Unseen and I want them.

I know often that a "launch" is more than just when the game goes 'live'. There are often several business factors involved. Contracts are affected by whether or not a game has "launched". Sometimes publishers are done supporting studios at a certain level after a "launch". Sometimes they offer bonuses if they "launch" before a certain deadline. I know for Star Trek Online, Cryptic Studios basically received Perpetual Studios old license for the property, but one of the conditions was that it still had to "launch" within the original timeframe allotted for Perpetual to complete it or they'd lose the license altogether.

EDIT: What I'm getting at is that sure, "launch" may not be any different than what we have now. It may just be the removal of the "beta" tag. But apparently there are people that have been treating this as a fully launched game and holding it up to those standards already, so is it really such a big deal to just drop the 'beta' tag at this point? It's not like MMO development stops as soon as the game goes live.

Edited by DirePhoenix, 10 September 2013 - 12:57 PM.

[Sug]

DirePhoenix, on 10 September 2013 - 12:32 PM, said:

It's not like MMO development stops as soon as the game goes live.

Feels like it already stopped.

[Woozle]

jozkhan, on 07 September 2013 - 02:50 AM, said:

As a former game developer it's quite inexplicable really. The only times I saw anything even close to this level of total fail were both due to Management / Executive level inexperience - i.e. the management of a project or a company being staffed by people who are not professional software developers, project managers or game developers. (Note: The fact PGI couldnt find a 'regular' publisher for MWO and IGP were simply 'created' to fulfill that role kinda says it all here - its a due diligence issue)

In one case the management insisted on 3D modelling of artifacts that would never be seen in-game maintaining their position even when presented with the facts this would require 26 years of rendering time!

In the other the management suffered from terrible cronyism, hiring 'friends' into positions such as lead artist even when that person had no 3D art skills whatsoever etc.

The ability to correctly plan out a games development (or any software project that runs over years, and has a massive burn rate (overhead cost) is so fundamental to the success of everything else that follows on from it.

This never ends well because the top level is at fault and cannot be replaced and worse still refuse to recognise the problem. In everyday life im sure everyone is familiar with government led software projects that run into the ground after millions are spent mainly because the top level of management have no clue as to how to develop software - which causes baked-in failure.

In both cases 'real game developers and software developers' abandon the company due to the fact objective reality is infinitely preferable to working in this kind of 'bubble'.

Sure, you get things wrong, things get delayed etc but if you are managing the project correctly these are mitigated by the things you do get right, time saved here and there and working smart.

In all honesty I think something else is at play with MWO. I mean nobody can get it wrong so consistently, it goes against the law of averages in fact and beggars belief. I think there is a minimalist approach at work here, they give the customer just enough to appear to have forward momentum (and nothing more). There's an illusion going on that we want to believe. But really all it is: a cynically exploitative business model to mine as much cash from its customers it return for giving them as little as possible.

Although there are some on the surface similarities to the world of tanks and war thunder business models there is something very different going on with MWO.

Quoted for MF'in TRUTH.

How about we start a Kickstarter to buy the MechWarrior IP from PGI? If all they want is money, we'll just pay them to f*ck off. Then we can make the game that all of us really want.

[Nauht]

DirePhoenix, on 10 September 2013 - 12:32 PM, said:

I didn't buy the Founder's or Phoenix packages because of some deluded notion that my money is going to give me some extra "voice" or that this game is going to happen only due to my support. This game was already funded before the Founder's Program. It was going to be made regardless of what or how much people have bought (now, whether or not those purchases shaped the development may be another story).

I am a Founder because they offered something I wanted to purchase even when the game was still in early development. Nothing more. No "cause". No soapbox. They had items for sale and I wanted them. Same with the Phoenix package. They're selling new models of the Unseen and I want them.

I know often that a "launch" is more than just when the game goes 'live'. There are often several business factors involved. Contracts are affected by whether or not a game has "launched". Sometimes publishers are done supporting studios at a certain level after a "launch". Sometimes they offer bonuses if they "launch" before a certain deadline. I know for Star Trek Online, Cryptic Studios basically received Perpetual Studios old license for the property, but one of the conditions was that it still had to "launch" within the original timeframe allotted for Perpetual to complete it or they'd lose the license altogether.

EDIT: What I'm getting at is that sure, "launch" may not be any different than what we have now. It may just be the removal of the "beta" tag. But apparently there are people that have been treating this as a fully launched game and holding it up to those standards already, so is it really such a big deal to just drop the 'beta' tag at this point? It's not like MMO development stops as soon as the game goes live.

Nah I just relied on information supplied by PGI about deadlines and what was to come at launch.

Silly me.

[Nauht]

Wolfways, on 10 September 2013 - 07:28 AM, said:

And you can believe what you like because you think you know the facts, but i'm not going to discuss this further as i don't want to put people's jobs at risk.

Oh I see. So it's like that. Uh-huh.... um.. sure.

That's out of the horse's mouth, a statement from the MWLL team. What have you got? My uncle's brother's dog trainer's sister said what?

EDIT: like I said there is absolutely no legal consequence for stating the truth. No slander.
If they got a cease and desist, that's a formal legal notice and there's nothing to stop them daying "sorry guys we can't do it for legal reasons". Youtube does it, hell everyone does it and there's nothing lost.
If they were asked to stop with threat of legal action that's still formal and they can say exactly that with no consequences. See above.
If they were asked w/o legal threats, then that's not really a threat at all. They could continue on until one of the above.
But yeah I can see where you're coming from if PGI had mafia connections and asked them "nicely" to stop.

Besides, if I'm wrong PROVE IT. Citation needed.

Edited by Nauht, 10 September 2013 - 03:56 PM.

[Wolfways]

Nauht, on 10 September 2013 - 03:50 PM, said:

Oh I see. So it's like that. Uh-huh.... um.. sure.

That's out of the horse's mouth, a statement from the MWLL team. What have you got? My uncle's brother's dog trainer's sister said what?

EDIT: like I said there is absolutely no legal consequence for stating the truth. No slander.
If they got a cease and desist, that's a formal legal notice and there's nothing to stop them daying "sorry guys we can't do it for legal reasons". Youtube does it, hell everyone does it and there's nothing lost.
If they were asked to stop with threat of legal action that's still formal and they can say exactly that with no consequences. See above.
If they were asked w/o legal threats, then that's not really a threat at all. They could continue on until one of the above.
But yeah I can see where you're coming from if PGI had mafia connections and asked them "nicely" to stop.

Besides, if I'm wrong PROVE IT. Citation needed.

As i already said, i'm not going to discuss it.

[Nauht]

Wolfways, on 10 September 2013 - 04:04 PM, said:

As i already said, i'm not going to discuss it.

Oh so you got nothing. Just as I thought.

Mm'k.

[RG Notch]

Nauht, on 10 September 2013 - 04:36 PM, said:

Oh so you got nothing. Just as I thought.

Mm'k.

He could tell you but then he'd have to kill you.

[Flak Kannon]

I guess I'm part of the vocal minority.

I can not WAIT until launch, and the sh!tstorm that will erupt when they officially launch nothing other than a store to sell more ****.

We don't want to buy more stuff with MC....get it...Jesus!

Add game elements you planned and announced all through out 2013 that you failed to deliver.

Oh... And thanks for offering Orion's for MC today....!!!! 'Headslap'

Just what we really don't need.

See your sales figures verses your expected sales figures...

Guess what... We don't want more shiny trinkets.

[Lindonius]

Comstar NA Teamspeak server is FULL of people playing War Thunder. There are now even a few dedicated War Thunder rooms and a lot of people in the regular rooms with "playing war thunder" next to their names (in case, god forbid, someone might actually come in to their room and ask them to play MWO.)

Edited by Lindonius, 10 September 2013 - 06:01 PM.

[RG Notch]

Lindonius, on 10 September 2013 - 06:00 PM, said:

Comstar NA Teamspeak server is FULL of people playing War Thunder. There are now even a few dedicated War Thunder rooms and a lot of people in the regular rooms with "playing war thunder" next to their names (in case, god forbid, someone might actually come in to their room and ask them to play MWO.)

I bet those people log in to MWO at least once a month, that's the gold standard for retention and play time at PGI! IF you set the bar low enough anything is a success!

[Wolfways]

Nauht, on 10 September 2013 - 04:36 PM, said:

Oh so you got nothing. Just as I thought.

Mm'k.

When did i say i had anything? You're the one who wants proof of something when there isn't any. You're the one going on about a conspiracy theory.
I just stated the fact that, as said by both PGI and the MWLL team, there was no C&D.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Sean von Steinike, on 05 September 2013 - 03:14 AM, said:

Founder's Cat is the most owned mech......so.....not too many non-founders out there? And 50% of Founder's play monthly? One match in a month?

Most likely it is founders logging in once per month to see if anything has changed for the better. They probably even drop a match or two just to test things out, then go back to patiently waiting and hopeing for change.

As far as the Founders mostly all buying in to Phoenix well, just prior to Pheonix, the game was in a pretty good place. They were also talking about 2 mechs being released per month, UI 2.0 being in for release and at least stage one CW also making it in for release. Now though, no UI 2.0, no CW, no two mechs a month and instead of a release launching all the features we have patiently been waiting for. We get weapons nerfed back to the stone age instead of balancing them. I wonder, how many founders would have purchased Pheonix knowing what we know now hehe.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 10 September 2013 - 06:32 PM.

[DirePhoenix]

Flak Kannon, on 10 September 2013 - 05:43 PM, said:

Oh... And thanks for offering Orion's for MC today....!!!! 'Headslap'

That's standard procedure since the past 2 or 3 chassis...

Week1: release Hero 'mech from the new chassis
Week2: release standard variants from the new chassis for MC
Week3: release standard variants from the new chassis for CBills.

[Pacifist]

Hope this works out.

Edited by DarwinsDisciple, 10 September 2013 - 07:51 PM.

[sokitumi]

DirePhoenix, on 10 September 2013 - 12:32 PM, said:

I didn't buy the Founder's or Phoenix packages because of some deluded notion that my money is going to give me some extra "voice" or that this game is going to happen only due to my support. This game was already funded before the Founder's Program. It was going to be made regardless of what or how much people have bought (now, whether or not those purchases shaped the development may be another story).

I am a Founder because they offered something I wanted to purchase even when the game was still in early development. Nothing more. No "cause". No soapbox. They had items for sale and I wanted them. Same with the Phoenix package. They're selling new models of the Unseen and I want them.

I know often that a "launch" is more than just when the game goes 'live'. There are often several business factors involved. Contracts are affected by whether or not a game has "launched". Sometimes publishers are done supporting studios at a certain level after a "launch". Sometimes they offer bonuses if they "launch" before a certain deadline. I know for Star Trek Online, Cryptic Studios basically received Perpetual Studios old license for the property, but one of the conditions was that it still had to "launch" within the original timeframe allotted for Perpetual to complete it or they'd lose the license altogether.

EDIT: What I'm getting at is that sure, "launch" may not be any different than what we have now. It may just be the removal of the "beta" tag. But apparently there are people that have been treating this as a fully launched game and holding it up to those standards already, so is it really such a big deal to just drop the 'beta' tag at this point? It's not like MMO development stops as soon as the game goes live.

Nice acceptance of under-achievement. I however invested in the founders bc their STATED PLANS looked cool. A year later.... in reality ->

Have we received ONE IOTA of information on what distinguished this from other mech games.. CW?
How many times have they pushed back a professional UI?
How many months did it take them to fix the yellow screen?
The many woes of HSR?
How much wild and/or arbitrary balancing can you take?
Months to release 12v12?
Where's DX11?
Where's integrated units and merc corps?
Why does PGI all but ignore their own forums?
Why do they release a 'hotfix' a week before 'launch' and give 0 details on what it did?
Why are 2 crappy gametypes of mech-cap-oil-rig acceptable to people in 2013? Aka where is dropship mutator?
Why is there 0 AI in this game?
How can people accept a self described 'AAA' MW game (with crytek, no less) that has no destructible environment art?
Why does almost every other game end with "who can dmg the SDR" for half a year...
...the list goes on and on and on...

Everything you say would make total sense if you disregard the short history of this game and place it in context of their words vs their deliverable.

Edited by sokitumi, 10 September 2013 - 10:11 PM.

[Peter2k]

If they at least provide a realistic timeframe to all the still missing features

But so much is missing, and every time I hear its coming, I now hear who knows when, if ever.

And why gets so much constructive critisism/ideas ignored while MWO still got its Beta sign slapped on.
You know feedback from those pesky "Beta Testers".

If they'd be at least be honest and talking to their customers, than emotions wouldn't be that high.
I can't see why I got all my info somewhere else than on their on Page.

I wonder what kind of reviews this game will get with gameplay from 10 years or so before and nothing else to show for, except a nice n shiny new store( wouldn't be surprised if this store would be buggy as hell)