587 replies to this topic

[Sandpit]

IF this game goes away, I'd have to say it won't be from lack of interest. It will be the way PGI has mismanaged PR, deadlines, and content.

[BlackWidow]

Dimento Graven, on 19 November 2013 - 09:47 AM, said:

My understanding is different, that for boxed games the publisher received upwards of 90% of the sales, netting a profit of AT LEAST %50/box sold, but admittedly, this is dated 'single source' information...

The $3 per box estimation is more in line with console releases where Sony / Microsoft get the lions share. It's what allows them to sell the hardware at or below cost. The reoccurring revenue. Whereas PC developers only have to pay for employee cost and then a much smaller percentage to a publisher for marketing. It's still big, but no where near a console title. But, console titles tend to sell much higher numbers than PC only games.

That is why cross platform is so lucrative. You get high numbers from game console sales and higher revenue percentages from PC (existing hardware) sales.

[spectralthundr]

Tolkien, on 19 November 2013 - 09:05 AM, said:

Best I can find with 1 minute in google is this tracking site http://video-games.f...r-4-Mercenaries

It estimates units in the 1-10 million range. Back then what was a full boxed video game? 44.99? Let's be pessimists and assume it was at the absolute low end of that estimate and we'll call it $50,000,000

The best you can find is a guestimate on a site that I've certainly never heard of with a pretty huge span, 1-10 million? That's a pretty broad guess. Considering MW4 and MW4 mercenaries had pretty much zero marketing when they came out, and knowing how the numbers generally go for extremely niche titles, which Mechwarrior has always been even since the FASA/Activision days, I doubt either of the MS published titles did much more than a million, 2 tops and that's being generous.

Other fun fact: Activision published the first-person perspective MechWarrior in 1989, based on FASA's pen-and-pencil game BattleTech. Activision released the sequel, MechWarrior 2, in 1995 after two years of delays and internal struggles. Because of these delays, FASA decided against renewing their licensing deal with Activision. To counter, Activision released several more games bearing the MechWarrior 2 name, which did not violate their licensing agreement.

So basically all those MW2 titles we loved? Yes including MW2 Mercenaries? In a way done out of spite to get the most out of a license that Activison was going to lose, it's why they titled them all Mechwarrior 2: <subtitle>

You need to keep in mind how rocky a history the IP has had as well, just how many times it's changed hands, amoung other factors certainly play a role in why we haven't had more MW titles I think.

Edited by spectralthundr, 19 November 2013 - 11:02 AM.

[Ransack]

IceGryphon, on 18 November 2013 - 01:56 PM, said:

Is this like the Holy Ghost of heat or something?
MWO will resurrect in 3 days when the UI 2.0 comes out?

Best evar!

[C E Dwyer]

Devilsfury, on 16 November 2013 - 08:56 PM, said:

Im with you brother...but given PGI's track record, I wouldnt hold my breath. They are typically 6+ months or more behind their schedule. CW will be approx 1yr, 7 months behind schedule.

CW is allready way over due its intresting to see the new blood as fed up now with PGI's poor developement speed than us old CB players

[SiR SockMonkeyDonkey]

Well, I support that MW:O is currently nothing more then a simple FPS that easily fades into boring and repetitious. Maybe in PGI's excitement to meet there pillar goals they lost insight as to how long and expensive this adventure could get. Thankfully many of us have held support for this adventure to develop in the form of money for mild or esthetic content. I will be pacing myself for now to help myself not get sick of the game before all the content is fully implemented! For all of those leaving, I hope you check in and hope to all again if PGI can pull this mess out of the mud.

[VIPER2207]

another fact that makes me thinking:

i asked the customer support if i could get a refund for my Saber Package, since i'm thinking about leaving the game, because i have several issues with it. I wrote them, if they want to know the exact issues, they could just tell me, i will write it down for them.

today i received the answer from customer support. they asked me to confirm my request, because i would not be able to buy the Saber Package again after i got my refund, just to inform me if i change my mind later. they did not ask about the reasons why i'm thinking about quiting the game, like they just don't care.
I mean, they got a nice chance to hear a customer's reason why he doesn't want to play their game anymore, without digging through a scrapwall of text on their forums. but it seems they are not interested in the reasons, for any reason. maybe it's because of "well, our ship is sinking, screw it, i don't care anymore", i don't know.

just reminds me of my last boss, when i told him that i quit my job at his company, and that today's my last day. he just said "goodbye" and that's all. he didn't want to know why one of his best employees (in a mandatory position, i was the only one there who knew how to administrate the enterprise resource management software, so he was totaly screwed without me) leaves his company... he was just like "yeah, go ahead, i don't care".

i think that's weird =(

[DaZur]

Cathy, on 19 November 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

CW is allready way over due its intresting to see the new blood as fed up now with PGI's poor developement speed than us old CB players

Sorry... when I see new players complaining over the speed of production, all I hear is parroted wails of indignation gleaned from the copious blathering of the disenchanted.

MW:O surely has it's problems... But for relatively new players to posture like they've been patiently waiting out PGI's glacial production cycle and copping attitude is pretty flipping insulting and disingenuous if you ask me.

[MizarPanzer]

I am taking a break too. Like others have already said, the game badly need some newcontent like CW, something that is worth grinding for. The new shiney mechs just won't cut it for me anymore.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Tolkien, on 19 November 2013 - 03:07 AM, said:

I don't follow - it was a first person shooter for the most part... that's just the map screen part I showed above. It was conceptually very close to the promises MWO has made but with much older graphics and set in a time before the clans. I think they were planning to add in mercenaries later that would get contracts to help the sides that were losing to help with equilibrium.



This is their promotional video where they show the combat.

Fun things to note>
1) Some mechs had rear facing weapons
2) Unlike PGI which has pointed them all forward because it's easier, they implemented the rear facing cam.
3) If you lost both legs you weren't dead! You could still roll a few degrees to each side if you had working arms.
4) Using those together I remember scoring a kill against an enemy using a rear facing medium laser from a legged and prone mech that had been left for dead

Oh lawdy the depth!

Edit> Here's a better video for combat that also reminds me they had 21 mechs and 60+ variants even in that short window, as well as jump jets that made lights feel like superman.


.... not suparman which is kind of how the JJs here make me feel.......


wooo, look at me... I'm suparman the poptart.

ahhh thanks for that, i've seen those trailers before the first screenie threw me right off, thought it was a different game

for the time MPBT was an advanced format for a video game, great shame it never happened... and it's still not happening.

thank you Tolkien for making it very clear what the expectations are for MWO and that yes you can definitely compare it to a game in the making many years ago... looks like they got further ahead than PGI but then we have the customizations in this game which only meant many more things to consider in balancing.

should've done a stock only mode?

[Tolkien]

GalaxyBluestar, on 19 November 2013 - 02:52 PM, said:

ahhh thanks for that, i've seen those trailers before the first screenie threw me right off, thought it was a different game

for the time MPBT was an advanced format for a video game, great shame it never happened... and it's still not happening.

thank you Tolkien for making it very clear what the expectations are for MWO and that yes you can definitely compare it to a game in the making many years ago... looks like they got further ahead than PGI but then we have the customizations in this game which only meant many more things to consider in balancing.

should've done a stock only mode?

Short answer.... Yes.

Long answer?

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees......

:/

Even speaking as a guy who loves mech customization, I don't carry any illusions of how badly it can complicate balancing, and while I'm not going to say 'developer X is not up to the job' I will say that mechwarrior 3 and mechwarrior 4 both had serious problems related to custom mechs. In retrospect it's naive for any dev to think they could put in less controls over customization than mech 4 had (hardpoint sizes) and expect it to go smoother.

It's also baffling from a business point of view in that they are removing one of their options for diversifying mech chassis by not using hardpoint sizes. Even now mech chassis are starting to blend together due to their profound flexibility. For example.. since I am a baddy I leveled all my jagermechs to master using 2xAC20 because all the jager chassis are interchangable when built this way.

Edited by Tolkien, 19 November 2013 - 03:03 PM.

[AC]

The sad thing is that PGI could have prevented this from the beginning using a two prong approach

1) Allow user made content. (new maps could have gone a long way to stave off the boredom)
2) Allow 3rd party leagues to use the game to play


#2 is a huge one as 3rd party leagues could have actually drawn in a lot of players and would have provided a metagame to play while waiting for PGI to launch whatever they are going to launch for CW. The population in MWO could have been 10x what it is now with living, functioning 3rd party leagues.

Too bad their decisions are coming back to bite them... and bite them hard.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Tolkien, on 19 November 2013 - 03:01 PM, said:

because all the jager chassis are interchangable when built this way.

not only that but they've shot themselves in the foot...

as we know the biggest sales for the company, to buy themselves development time, has been mechs.

releasing new mechs keeps things afloat but how viable is it with the current loose customization mechanics?

already we're seeing shadow hawks replacing hunchbacks because a shadow hawk can equip a similar punch and has bonuses in with JJs and armour at the expense of some height profiling and 5 tons.

the awesome has always been in the shadow of the stalker and why buy and x5 when jenner can do the same and more.

this is what role warfare was supposed to do, give chassis and variants niche abilities either by pilot TREES {not the all over liner one which has no effect on this issue, except to screw over trial mechs} and to resemble more of each mech's positives and negatives by what weapons they could mount and how they could be deployed.

when i started playing MWO i thought "oh wow i'm actually going to need to target that hunchi to see if it's a 4P or 4H to understand what weapons it could have". sadly i needn't had worried because the system lets you get away with MIN-MAX builds that shouldn't have been possible, like raven's with huge ac's and we've seen how screwed up the catapult's become adopting the justification of corrupt builds. if it weren't for the high arms on a jagger we'd still see many whackpults and gauss pults.

customization means optimization and when you let too much of that happen you get redundancies for many units, only out of ignorance and curiosity do you use the weakest chassis, i haven't seen a treb or BJ or quickdraw hardly ever. why? cause other mechs have the customization freedom to do their jobs better.

AC, on 19 November 2013 - 03:35 PM, said:

The sad thing is that PGI could have prevented this from the beginning using a two prong approach

1) Allow user made content. (new maps could have gone a long way to stave off the boredom)
2) Allow 3rd party leagues to use the game to play

totally agree with 2, with in game VOIP and/or an any number premades system then pugs wouldn't be a detriment and wouldn't be shouting "evil premades" cause you'd only have a few on each side being support mechs for the co-ordinated players, battles would be far more evenly matched with less random play to bring a team down if the other wolfpacks, which usually occurs. god i wish there was an no number limit on premades and that MM would consider the premade number in the equation ie: premade 6vs 6 and pug fillers or premade 11vs11 with pug fillers. it would encourage alot more play with friends stuff like the game was supposed to be.

1) i think they said under their terms of agreement with crytek that only pgi can publish stuff made with crytek gear hence no user made content allowed. it was mentioned almost a year ago can't put my fingers on the exact info but many people chimed in saying they wanted to contribute and staff said the liscenec or something forbid them letting anyone else using crytek for publishing or something.

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 19 November 2013 - 03:47 PM.

[AC]

Tolkien, on 19 November 2013 - 03:01 PM, said:

Short answer.... Yes.

Long answer?

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees......

:/

Even speaking as a guy who loves mech customization, I don't carry any illusions of how badly it can complicate balancing, and while I'm not going to say 'developer X is not up to the job' I will say that mechwarrior 3 and mechwarrior 4 both had serious problems related to custom mechs. In retrospect it's naive for any dev to think they could put in less controls over customization than mech 4 had (hardpoint sizes) and expect it to go smoother.

It's also baffling from a business point of view in that they are removing one of their options for diversifying mech chassis by not using hardpoint sizes. Even now mech chassis are starting to blend together due to their profound flexibility. For example.. since I am a baddy I leveled all my jagermechs to master using 2xAC20 because all the jager chassis are interchangable when built this way.

This needed a +1 from me. Been saying this since Closed Beta and the Gausapult.

[Sug]

GalaxyBluestar, on 19 November 2013 - 02:52 PM, said:

should've done a stock only mode?

That ship has long since sailed but yes. God yes. Definitely on the top ten list of huge mistakes pgi made.

GalaxyBluestar, on 19 November 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

1) i think they said under their terms of agreement with crytek that only pgi can publish stuff made with crytek gear hence no user made content allowed. it was mentioned almost a year ago can't put my fingers on the exact info but many people chimed in saying they wanted to contribute and staff said the liscenec or something forbid them letting anyone else using crytek for publishing or something.

Another big mistake. Using an engine you're not familiar with that wasn't built for multiplayer for your multiplayer game that has no community support.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Sug, on 19 November 2013 - 05:16 PM, said:

These ships have long sailed.

yeah many voices cried out for these things last year and one was "our biggest selling point is play with customizations so no to all polls wanting a stock only mode"

and then the "sorry we used up the budget just to get CE3 let alone any techsupport or permission for others to use the gear and submit designs"

yeah bad news there.

[Odins Fist]

GalaxyBluestar, on 19 November 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

customization means optimization and when you let too much of that happen you get redundancies for many units, only out of ignorance and curiosity do you use the weakest chassis, i haven't seen a treb or BJ or quickdraw hardly ever. why? cause other mechs have the customization freedom to do their jobs better.

The Universe of MechWarrior/BattleTech needs ditch diggers too...

Sorry but without Mech Customization MWO would have been dead months ago... That's just the reality of the situation, and I know of many, many, many, many , people that would have NEVER put a dime into MWO if it would have been one loadout per variant.

Just how much Mech Customization there should be is debatable, and i'm not getting into that.
But I will say that I predicted this turn of events MONTHS AGO if development didn't keep pace with the wants of the consumer, and as a matter of fact I put up many posts about that issue... One thing I said was "The end of summer could be the begining of an exodus", but the Pheonix pack was just enough crumbs from the table to keep players around.
.
Too old of a post to hit quote button.
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Posted 18 March 2013 - 04:48 PM

.
Odins Fist, on 18 March 2013 - 04:48 PM, said:
"Unfortunately I have to say that i'm seeing the exact same thing, I know of (7) people that have gotten bored, and say things like "I'm not waiting until November for things to get rolling" and "there isn't anything left for me to do", and "Community Warfare, call me when they implement it", the list goes on and on and on and on and on and on.... I know of even more that just log in to see if anything has changed, then spend their time somewhere else..

I get where they are coming from, they laid down more than $60.00 to $120.00, which is more than what they have paid for fully developed titles, and I get the whole "it's Beta" thing, but it isn't enough to keep their attention anymore, for them the window of opportunity has all but closed, and some of them have no plans to come back in the summer, and I will quote one friend, "I'm stuck in the house during the winter, but this summer i'm not going to be sitting here waiting for a new mech, I have a life".

Many of these statements are quite telling, I know development takes time, but the DEVS have to realize that "PAYING CUSTOMERS" don't care about their deadlines, they care about what "THEY" want, and don't get into some kind of instant gratification debate, at this point that isn't realistic, instant gratification has nothing to do with waiting for months, and that is reality of the situation.

I think MWO will turn out to be decent, and my only big gripe is with the ridiculous 3050 timeline, they never should have announced it in the first place, it has created more problems than it was intended to solve, they should have just remained silent on that issue. On that note I have my own timeline/lifespan for MWO, but i'm not getting into that, only what I have seen and been told.

Everything that I have seen and heard leads me to believe the following will happen.
If summer ends up being another "it's beta" debate, and nothing but a new round of testing "lookout", that will be the "first wave" of an exodus.
If communtiy warfare doesn't show soon, then you will see another group of players leaving, with no idea if they will return.
If players that have been around since closed beta are told they have to wait until November 2013 to see Clan Tech/Mechs, then MWO might lose a number of players.
This is exactly what i'm hearing across the board from "EVERYONE" of my friends that play MWO, and even more from people ingame and on the forums.. The reality of the situation is just the reality of the situation, and here it is."
...............................................................................................................................................................................
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Some people think the MWO development cycle just keeps repeating itself...
This was posted 8 months ago... See the cycle?

Edited by Odins Fist, 19 November 2013 - 06:05 PM.

[Creovex]

Tolkien, on 19 November 2013 - 12:44 AM, said:

Since CW and other features were already somewhat delayed by March 2013, this gets dangerously close to the effects discussed in 'the mythical man month' http://en.wikipedia....hical_Man-Month.

How do I know this guy was in college at somepoint, because they have been selling that POS book for years.... I remember buring mine back in 2000.

++ rep

AC, on 19 November 2013 - 03:35 PM, said:

2) Allow 3rd party leagues to use the game to play


#2 is a huge one as 3rd party leagues could have actually drawn in a lot of players and would have provided a metagame to play while waiting for PGI to launch whatever they are going to launch for CW. The population in MWO could have been 10x what it is now with living, functioning 3rd party leagues.

Too bad their decisions are coming back to bite them... and bite them hard.

3rd Party Leagues is what would have MADE this game. All the other stuff could continue to trickle but without someone actually developing a solid, controllable league structure, this thing is fizzling faster then a bottle rocket in Johnny Knoxville's butt crack...

[Primez]

MWO in decline according to google. I tried to add in other F2Ps for comparison but it just made the graph look terrible with MWO a solid line at the bottom. As you can see it's declining and there was a brief moment where is rised but that was due to phoenix and started dropping like a stone soon after.

I personally think giving us back our 8v8 cbill earnings would help stem this downward tide until CW.

[Tekadept]

Primez, on 19 November 2013 - 06:38 PM, said:

MWO in decline according to google. I tried to add in other F2Ps for comparison but it just made the graph look terrible with MWO a solid line at the bottom. As you can see it's declining and there was a brief moment where is rised but that was due to phoenix and started dropping like a stone soon after.

I personally think giving us back our 8v8 cbill earnings would help stem this downward tide until CW.

I did that a while ago, Is russia still the country its most popular with to?