565 replies to this topic

[Ransack]

I really hope you guys buckle down and actually do some of the things that you laid out in a reasonable time frame. It's getting harder to keep my merc corps together playing this game. I used to hype this game to no end, now it has become my dirty little secret. I am ashamed at the amount of money that I have thrown behind the PGI BS. I stay because I want to prove to myself that I was right for believing in these guys when a lot of my friends laughed when told the name of the developer. But honestly, I'm tired. My time in this game is now on life support.

I feel really saddened that with all of the hype from your launch event, that nothing from that has even come close to being released. CW and UI2 were supposed to have been in development before we left closed beta a year ago. What happened to the work that was done? Why has it gotten to the point where the game is in no better state than it was last year at this time?

Last year there was hope on the horizon, this year there is none. I am honestly not excited about any of these "developments" because all of this should have been here already. Small team is no excuse, you charge more for a single piece of digital add on material in this game than I pay for full games. I would hope that you have been hiring quality since you claim to not have quantity. Sadly it is seeming that you have little of either.

Come on guys, this game will not make it another year like this.

[SovietArmada]

Awesome job guys! But I am a little concerned that i did not see any update regarding the HSR progress and where the team is at with that. As hit detection is a major issue with any shooter, and this one is still in desperate need of fixing.

Has UI2.0 taken precedence over HSR patches or is there still a dedicated team looking into those issues? Thanks.

[Nihtgenga]

SpiralFace, on 03 December 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

Something as highly complex as a complete UI re-vamp and a full CW experience (Which even as a base planning I feel is a bit "overambitious" of them.) requires a substantial amount of personnel to get done. Team size directly relates to how quickly the turnover for these features can be, in addition to how quickly they can be de-bugged and pushed live.

This is something I know. I do lead teams in my daily work. The key point I see is here:

Quote

Their scheduling on the otherhand is on them.

The smaller the team size, the higher the possibility of any uncalculabe, unforseeable problem creating a bottleneck impairing the progress on the critical path of the project. But decent planning at least does already include safety buffers in time and money, if not even persons. They obviously drastically underestimated this need, or some things horribly went wrong. Nothing bad about this, s..t happens.

But they repeatedly made claims they couldn't even live up close, that's what is really to blame fully on themselves, and likewise their habit in trying to mask this shortcomings by trying to talk it down. This reaction to what happens, doing project/ressource adjustments etc., is not less part of project planning. Failing there may easily be more fatal than any underestimation in the beginning.
This is NOT building the required trust of the customers, that they will be able to fulfill the next promises. "soon^TM" is NOT helping people believe that the game has a future and MCs are well-spent. It is NOT helping people to have the impression that the game even will develop to their likings, if PGI is announcing to do things exactly the opposite way from what they got as community answer when asking.

I'm not criticizing PGI for making errors or that things went different than expected, I'm criticizing how they choose to deal with it. To me, a more open (also open to ideas/feedback!) communication would build much more trust and optimism than always just repeating the mantra "yes, we're working, things are going quite well, things will come soon" - you can see from the feedback in the forums, how little the number of long-time players is that still believes that 100% of what they say will come. Many are already somewhere under 50% credibility expectation, which will drive them away from investing in the game any further, which hampers PGI even more = vicious cycle. To my mind, PGI should take the short "digital beating" in the forum for the parts that they did wrong, and restart differently with full thrust and full support from the community.

Quote

But from the information that is out there, it seems like progress is being made, just at a snails pace.

That's one part, if it is really a promise kept this time. The question if going into the right direction is the other, and not smaller in importance.

Quote

If the game is doing as financially well as they make it out to be, I hope they are doing the right thing by investing those profits into new blood for their studio.

I fully agree. A bit more ressources, a bit more transparency about what they do when and why, plus a bit more considering the wishes of the community, and MWO might finally see the light and bliss of many happy longterm addicted players. However, being here since roughly the start of open beta, confidence in this has been dwindling with me due to experience. It would be refreshing and motivating, if this experience would change, as I as a decade-long player of BT/MW games would really, really be happy about a getting towards a game being that what MWO was promised to be long time ago.

Edited by Nihtgenga, 03 December 2013 - 01:31 PM.

[Gambling Gemini]

Ok there are no fix dates! -.-

For the new map there where not even a "real" screenshot or is that a "real" screenshot

But there are some really good ideas!

Hope something will happen!

Rock´n Roll

Edited by Gemini106, 03 December 2013 - 01:33 PM.

[CMetz]

Sometimes I find it almost vomit inducing to read the replies to these posts. The sense of self-entitlement around here is ridiculous. Allow me to touch upon a few things:

1.) YOU ARE PLAYING A FREE GAME. The world made the developers NO promises when they were creating this game. They did it as a project with hopes that the world would accept it and play it often. Why do you think that you are owed anything?

2.) You keep whining about all the money you've spent on said free game. You bought MC's, mech packages, etc with an understanding of what was available at the time and what wasn't. There is no reason to complain when future updates don't come out when YOU think they should. YOU made the purchase with YOUR money. Buyer beware.

3.) A new mech comes out and it doesn't suit YOUR playstyle? So you complain? Get over yourself.

4.) The developers push out features as fast as they can. They have all the motivation in the world to release things as quickly as possible. They are not holding features to spite you. Again, get over yourself.

5.) Play the game that is available to you instead of complaining about the stuff you wish you had. If you don't like it, play another game. Grow up and live in the real world. You can't always get exactly what you want whenever you want it. It will come. Patience is a virtue.

Rant over.

[TOGSolid]

CMetz, on 03 December 2013 - 01:39 PM, said:

Sometimes I find it almost vomit inducing to read the replies to these posts. The sense of self-entitlement around here is ridiculous. Allow me to touch upon a few things:

1.) YOU ARE PLAYING A FREE GAME. The world made the developers NO promises when they were creating this game. They did it as a project with hopes that the world would accept it and play it often. Why do you think that you are owed anything?

2.) You keep whining about all the money you've spent on said free game. You bought MC's, mech packages, etc with an understanding of what was available at the time and what wasn't. There is no reason to complain when future updates don't come out when YOU think they should. YOU made the purchase with YOUR money. Buyer beware.

3.) A new mech comes out and it doesn't suit YOUR playstyle? So you complain? Get over yourself.

4.) The developers push out features as fast as they can. They have all the motivation in the world to release things as quickly as possible. They are not holding features to spite you. Again, get over yourself.

5.) Play the game that is available to you instead of complaining about the stuff you wish you had. If you don't like it, play another game. Grow up and live in the real world. You can't always get exactly what you want whenever you want it. It will come. Patience is a virtue.

Rant over.

It's awful telling that the only really hardcore defenders PGI has left are all mostly new people who don't have a ******** clue what they're talking about.

Quote

But they repeatedly made claims they couldn't even live up close, that's what is really to blame fully on themselves, and likewise their habit in trying to mask this shortcomings by trying to talk it down. This reaction to what happens, doing project/ressource adjustments etc., is not less part of project planning. Failing there may easily be more fatal than any underestimation in the beginning.
This is NOT building the required trust of the customers, that they will be able to fulfill the next promises. "soon^TM" is NOT helping people believe that the game has a future and MCs are well-spent. It is NOT helping people to have the impression that the game even will develop to their likings, if PGI is announcing to do things exactly the opposite way from what they got as community answer when asking.

Pretty much. PGI is basically like those guys constantly begging for cold fusion grant money because it's "totally just ten years away!" Yeah, it's been ten years away for decades.

Their complete and utter failure at communication is at this point just insulting and telling of their attitude towards their customers. Them switching to a clunky video format is just more proof that they're more interested in stringing people along than they are in creating a quality product. As long as the F2P churn keeps working in their favor they have no reason to improve and no reason to fix their internal leadership issues.

Edited by TOGSolid, 03 December 2013 - 02:32 PM.

[Roadbeer]

TOGSolid, on 03 December 2013 - 02:26 PM, said:

It's awful telling that the only really hardcore defenders PGI has left are all mostly new people who don't have a ******** clue what they're talking about.

Just as telling as those with a sig talking about how they don't play anymore are still posting on its forum.

Edited by Roadbeer, 03 December 2013 - 02:32 PM.

[TOGSolid]

Roadbeer, on 03 December 2013 - 02:31 PM, said:

Just as telling as those with a sig talking about how they don't play anymore are still posting on its forum.

Ah yes, and here comes the lead PGI brown noser to try and act like some sort of forum cop. How about you go back to begging for attention in K-Town like the sad little man you are?

I want this game to improve but I also am not going to act like everything is peaches and gravy around here and treat PGI with any sort of respect seeing as how they've shown nothing but disdain for their customer base. To pretend otherwise is to dellude yourself and if you don't like people speaking out against the game and PGI then maybe you should learn how a forum works.

Edited by TOGSolid, 03 December 2013 - 02:44 PM.

[stjobe]

CMetz, on 03 December 2013 - 01:39 PM, said:

Patience is a virtue.

Since you've only been here for about two months, there's no way for you to know that we've heard this song before from PGI.

UI 2.0 has been "in development" since at least May, CW has been "worked on under the hood" since closed beta. Every single update this game has had; every patch, open beta, 12-man, launch, you name it, has been padded with promises of CW soon, UI2.0 soon, this soon, that soon, no hard date, no real plan, we're starting work now, we've talked about it, we want to do it, it's been discussed, sorry no fixed time table.

I was frankly shocked when I saw the deplorable state of UI 2.0 - six months of development and they haven't even something feature-complete to show for it. But that pales to them saying that they're "thinking of" how to balance the Clans - who should have invaded during May! And that still pales to insignificance when you realize that CW - one of the "pillars" of the game - is still just a pie-in-the-sky idea with nothing whatsoever concrete about it.

Give it time; I've been patient since August 2012 myself, I'm sure the umpteenth time you personally read that CW is "being worked on under the hood" you'll change your tune and wonder why the hell it isn't here yet.

[Name140704]

SovietArmada, on 03 December 2013 - 01:16 PM, said:

Has UI2.0 taken precedence over HSR patches or is there still a dedicated team looking into those issues? Thanks.

I don't believe so. For something to take precedence it must be a priority to begin with. I remember that launch thingy saying UI 2.0 would be out in four weeks. Heck, I remember this time last year when all the goodies we're coming in February 2013.

Keep on wishing

[Deathlike]

NARCoMAN, on 03 December 2013 - 02:55 PM, said:

Have you guys been reading a lot of Paul's posts on how to communicate with people?

It's teh "precious" that must be deposited on Mordor... I mean Terra Therma.

[Jakob Knight]

Nihtgenga, on 03 December 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

To my mind, PGI should take the short "digital beating" in the forum for the parts that they did wrong, and restart differently with full thrust and full support from the community.

That time is past. The Devs have burned all such bridges with 3PV and the willing disregard of their promises to the players, and have finally removed even the placeholders they had for seperated queues. That is pretty much the final word on if they intend to honor their commitments, and has killed any chance of a full support by this community. Why should this community support people who time and again don't show they regard this community with anything like respect?

No, this is a pattern of behavior that will not change. The devs have decided CW is less important than being seen as 'hip', as evidenced by the 'appearance is more important than ability to function' UI 2.0, the switch to one-way video formatting and Facebook/Twitter for all their meaningful communication to the players, and the obvious lack of any sort of management in the projects of the game (CW is not even past the design stages, when they had preliminary examples of it in pre-Beta?).

Full support? Only when the devs fulfill their promises to the community for seperated queues, election to play the game without 3PV, and change their attitude that the community is better off without firm information/commitments. As long as those remain undone, the devs have no right to full support.

Edited by Jakob Knight, 03 December 2013 - 03:39 PM.

[MischiefSC]

A well written update. Thank you. Some examples of player feedback being taken into consideration (even if it's not implemented) would be nice, if only to give some warm fuzzies.

New game modes a HUGE plus - need some significant changes, something new to sink my teeth into other than a new mech (still tears of blood over my battlemasters 60 degree torso turn. *WEEP* *SOB*) and new game modes are a big incentive to get people playing and involved. A new mech is a grind - it has some sense of reward but diminishing returns and certainly all mechs are not created equal. A new map is good but unpredictable. A new game mode is excellent.

Eager to see UI 2.0. Happy to play with a buggy one if only because so much of where the game is going is UI 2.0 dependent.

Thank you for the update though. Well put together and informative.

[MechWarrior Black Knight]

question

why game dont look that good like in closed beta? even on pts with DX 11 looked worse






that atlas looks amazing

[NineSortJam]

Thanks for the update.

I dislike video* updates, because:

- I read faster than you talk

- Text is more convenient than audio (e.g. at work, on a mobile phone)

* You say 'video', but it's mainly going to be images of someone talking, right? The main content will be auditory, with some visual filler. Fully utilising the strengths of video to deliver content would be more effort than the current textual updates.

[xhrit]

NineSortJam, on 03 December 2013 - 07:54 PM, said:

You say 'video', but it's mainly going to be images of someone talking, right? The main content will be auditory, with some visual filler. Fully utilising the strengths of video to deliver content would be more effort than the current textual updates.

This. The fact that someone thinks shooting a video is easier then writing a text file is a testiment to how misguided development on this project is.

How utterly clueless do you have to be to think developing a multimedia format is more efficient then a single media format?

[Pjwned]

I just have to wonder why the game went out of beta before this launched, especially because we should expect it to be buggy at first.

[Solis Obscuri]

TOGSolid, on 03 December 2013 - 12:17 AM, said:

Yeah no. It's quite telling that both this game and Mechwarrior Tactics are suffering from very similar failures of leadership issues that have resulted in even the most simple of tasks requiring Herculean effort.

I think the art department has been doing a very good job.

[xhrit]

CMetz, on 03 December 2013 - 01:39 PM, said:

1.) YOU ARE PLAYING A FREE GAME. The world made the developers NO promises when they were creating this game. They did it as a project with hopes that the world would accept it and play it often. Why do you think that you are owed anything?

The new Command & Conquer was a free game too. Developed by a small studio. They released a buggy beta that did not live up to their fan's expectations, so as a result the game was canceled and the studio closed.

No one owes dev studios jack. If they don't deliver quality product that meets their fans expectations, they don't get sales. Period.

No sales, no game.

That is where MWO is headed.

Edited by xhrit, 03 December 2013 - 08:42 PM.

[Solis Obscuri]

Nihtgenga, on 03 December 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

The smaller the team size, the higher the possibility of any uncalculabe, unforseeable problem creating a bottleneck impairing the progress on the critical path of the project.

Not necessarily. Big projects can with big teams can hinge on a small number of key elements.

Nihtgenga, on 03 December 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

But decent planning at least does already include safety buffers in time and money, if not even persons. They obviously drastically underestimated this need, or some things horribly went wrong. Nothing bad about this, s..t happens.

But they repeatedly made claims they couldn't even live up close, that's what is really to blame fully on themselves, and likewise their habit in trying to mask this shortcomings by trying to talk it down. This reaction to what happens, doing project/ressource adjustments etc., is not less part of project planning. Failing there may easily be more fatal than any underestimation in the beginning.

This is true and PGI's original schedules never seemed realistic. But that said, it makes little sense to expand scope while lagging on key elements, and that's what we've seen over the last year. In some cases heads needed to be pulled, like shifting engineers to HSR issues instead of putting them on database sharding. In others, devs seem to have been assigned exclusively to unpopular and non-core features like 3PV and the Pebbles of Steel, when they could have spent more useful time on more essential game elements.

Nihtgenga, on 03 December 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

This is NOT building the required trust of the customers, that they will be able to fulfill the next promises. "soon^TM" is NOT helping people believe that the game has a future and MCs are well-spent. It is NOT helping people to have the impression that the game even will develop to their likings, if PGI is announcing to do things exactly the opposite way from what they got as community answer when asking.

I'm not criticizing PGI for making errors or that things went different than expected, I'm criticizing how they choose to deal with it. To me, a more open (also open to ideas/feedback!) communication would build much more trust and optimism than always just repeating the mantra "yes, we're working, things are going quite well, things will come soon" - you can see from the feedback in the forums, how little the number of long-time players is that still believes that 100% of what they say will come. Many are already somewhere under 50% credibility expectation, which will drive them away from investing in the game any further, which hampers PGI even more = vicious cycle. To my mind, PGI should take the short "digital beating" in the forum for the parts that they did wrong, and restart differently with full thrust and full support from the community.

Prioritization does not seem to be a strong suit, and neither is communication of priorities, and as such expectation management within the community is a total mess. Mistakes happen, and bugs and development dead-ends should be expected during a beta. However, the entirety of Open Beta has not felt like a Beta. Every feature has been handed down fully-formed and feedback has been sought very little. The only "testing" seems to have been heuristic analysis to figure out whether the bugs are happening on the client or server side. For a community told they would be part of resurrecting a beloved franchise via crowdfunding and playtesting to be told later that they were just being allowed to buy fancy paintjobs and small earning bonuses has been a very bitter pill.

Nihtgenga, on 03 December 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

A bit more ressources, a bit more transparency about what they do when and why, plus a bit more considering the wishes of the community, and MWO might finally see the light and bliss of many happy longterm addicted players. However, being here since roughly the start of open beta, confidence in this has been dwindling with me due to experience. It would be refreshing and motivating, if this experience would change, as I as a decade-long player of BT/MW games would really, really be happy about a getting towards a game being that what MWO was promised to be long time ago.

It's a hard road after a year of very poor communication. PGI has gone from having ebullient support and enthusiasm to widespread bitterness and mistrust (in some cases outright malice) from the community in that period, and regaining it will be an uphill struggle. If PGI improves communications and pulls out a rabbit on CW, it could happen, but if they don't I expect MWO to begin taking on water fast. There is no shortage of icebergs and the captain sailed off his charts months ago.