342 replies to this topic

[Karpundir]

I formed up a 12-man at 4pm EST and we failed to find a single match for 30 minutes. We then tried again at 5:30pm for another 20 minutes and still no 12-man to drop with.

It could be the holidays. It could be exam time. It could be a loss in the desire to play 12-mans with the still persistent jump-sniping, plus artillery/air-striking meta.

Of the many players who have been playing regularly for the past 6+ months, they are citing loss of interest in the game as the main reason. There are 2 new consoles out, which have grabbed some attention away from PC gaming in general. There was a great Steam sale over the Black Friday weekend, of which I know at least a dozen guys in my merc corp who have been playing games bought during that sale.

What I can say is that some of you are probably right that we will see things pick up when the new Sabre pack comes out. A new map will help things spike a bit. The real invigorating feature for this game is not UI 2.0, but will be the lobby system where we can set-up private matches, assign the right 'Mechs to A, B and C lances (so those new spawn locations actually have some tactical value) and, of course, a PURPOSE to play this game, which is right now only the competitive player run leagues or the random, yet infrequent, Challenges that are hosted by PGI.

The empty promises on deliverables by PGI are wearing the patience of the most staunchest of MWO supporters paper thin. I have been playing this game continuously since closed beta with no breaks, so I consider myself a pretty loyal customer having bought both a Founder's and Phoenix pack, MC and I just can't bring myself to financially support this game without something real in return. If PGI wants to run this game to make money, give us a reason to spend it on something useful... not some Christmas items and pretty colours!

Edited by Karpundir, 07 December 2013 - 03:15 PM.

[RichAC]

Duncan Aravain, on 07 December 2013 - 03:08 PM, said:

No one wants to buy a PC game anymore?.... I see I'll have to drop the Star Citizen people an e-mail.

never even heard of that game lol I heard of MWO on gamespot.com.

Edited by RichAC, 07 December 2013 - 03:22 PM.

[Autobot9000]

The thing is: The game should have shipped with the entire content from day 1 of release on and have a good quality as well. But this wasn't PGIs plan and this kind of add-content as we move on simply isn't cutting it. Also announcements like the one for UI 2.0, where they said "it will ship with lots of bugs" is totally ******* people off. The game already has mediocre quality. The lack of quality dedication on PGIs part is atrocious, it's a really bad sign for a company, when they drop quality acceptance measures. People want a full, good quality game, the kind of stoneage old plain shooter doesn't motivate anyone to play, so they do drop sooner or later. The assumption of the game kind of drawing more and more players in isn't working. I believe the game is instead losing players as they become disappointed.
I think people do check back once in a while what the game is like, but they find in context of the whole rather small changes and not much happening. My entire friend list is offline these days, no one is playing MWO (and I have quit too, despite having "donated" money for it, because I was actually expecting this to become a good game).

Edited by Autobot9000, 07 December 2013 - 03:25 PM.

[RichAC]

Karpundir, on 07 December 2013 - 03:14 PM, said:

I formed up a 12-man at 4pm EST and we failed to find a single match for 30 minutes. We then tried again at 5:30pm for another 20 minutes and still no 12-man to drop with.

It could be the holidays. It could be exam time. It could be a loss in the desire to play 12-mans with the still persistent jump-sniping, plus artillery/air-striking meta.

Of the many players who have been playing regularly for the past 6+ months, they are citing loss of interest in the game as the main reason. There are 2 new consoles out, which have grabbed some attention away from PC gaming in general. There was a great Steam sale over the Black Friday weekend, of which I know at least a dozen guys in my merc corp who have been playing games bought during that sale.

What I can say is that some of you are probably right that we will see things pick up when the new Sabre pack comes out. A new map will help things spike a bit. The real invigorating feature for this game is not UI 2.0, but will be the lobby system where we can set-up private matches, assign the right 'Mechs to A, B and C lances (so those new spawn locations actually have some tactical value) and, of course, a PURPOSE to play this game, which is right now only the competitive player run leagues or the random, yet infrequent, Challenges that are hosted by PGI.

The empty promises on deliverables by PGI are wearing the patience of the most staunchest of MWO supporters paper thin. I have been playing this game continuously since closed beta with no breaks, so I consider myself a pretty loyal customer having bought both a Founder's and Phoenix pack, MC and I just can't bring myself to financially support this game without something real in return. If PGI wants to run this game to make money, give us a reason to spend it on something useful... not some Christmas items and pretty colours!

apparenlty my unit got smashed to the point of not wanting to play 12 mans anymore. They'd rather sync with that many peeps.

[Red squirrel]

Dozier, on 06 December 2013 - 11:42 PM, said:

You sir read to much into the Activision CoD justifications of host migration. Claiming hacks, pirating and such were a good reason for peer 2 peer. When they actually wanted to rid the world of "private servers" to eliminate free maps and mods. To sell their DLC to the world in little clumps to all the chumps.

PC gaming communities brought out the mappers and modders that pushed development of games such as that one. CoD even yanking the name and concept of Modern Warfare from the privately created MW mod. I made maps/mods and ran half a dozen servers for 5 years. Competing and casual play with less than 1% of these EVIL hackers ever coming into our communities.

The choking of the PC gaming world and going the route they have is for nothing more than money. And the result is what we have in current gaming.. slow developed, non-progressive, bugged out, {Scrap} servers, dumbed down garbage for a.d.d. thumb stick using give me everything for nothing tools. All in the name of $5 stickers to put on items to be cool.

Sorry, I had a personal moment..

just three words:
Sim City 5

In my mind I am hearing the song "video killed the radio star" but it's "console killed the PC game" in my version.

[RichAC]

Red squirrel, on 07 December 2013 - 03:25 PM, said:

just three words:
Sim City 5

In my mind I am hearing the song "video killed the radio star" but it's "console killed the PC game" in my version.

consoles are just a sympton of hackers killing it.

[LauLiao]

RichAC, on 07 December 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

consoles are just a sympton of hackers killing it.

Speaking of which, nobody seems to have pointed this out as a possible cause of server population decline. Both Xbox and Playstation have launched brand new consoles over the last couple of weeks, and there will be many gamers distracted by those.

[Red squirrel]

I'll never understand people who use a gamepad.

[Whatzituyah]

Red squirrel, on 07 December 2013 - 03:55 PM, said:

I'll never understand people who use a gamepad.

Hey I kinda like this one.

[Red squirrel]

We need a dislike button

[RichAC]

Red squirrel, on 07 December 2013 - 03:55 PM, said:

I'll never understand people who use a gamepad.

If the new consoles have FPS games that i can use a mouse and keyboard on. I will be abandoning the pc too lol.

[xMEPHISTOx]

Mech The Dane, on 06 December 2013 - 10:05 AM, said:

I was wondering if anyone else has noticed less people playing MWO?

I am not sure if it is just my limited perspective, or if it is a real thing. It APPEARS that I am seeing both fewer new faces and fewer old faces. That when I run 12 mans I run into less and less teams doing the same.

Are other groups seeing this as well? Is it just an expected November -> December Holiday slowdown, maybe people finally giving up on PGI? Or something else?

Is it just me? Or it this happening?

Tough to say since we do not have access to the online population as do in say a game like wot. But there have been a lot of the competitive minded folks who have been dropping off over the last several months due to pgi's seeming lack of priority in providing features (lobby system & cw's) for the competitive crowd. A great many may very well return when one of these features is introduced.
Surely the holidays will have some effect on this as well. But how the holidays effects it is limited as many may not log on as much while others will do so more as they have time off.
Either way there really is no way to know w/out proper information whether the game population is declining or not.

[RichAC]

Autobot9000, on 07 December 2013 - 03:21 PM, said:

The thing is: The game should have shipped with the entire content from day 1 of release on and have a good quality as well. But this wasn't PGIs plan and this kind of add-content as we move on simply isn't cutting it. Also announcements like the one for UI 2.0, where they said "it will ship with lots of bugs" is totally ******* people off. The game already has mediocre quality. The lack of quality dedication on PGIs part is atrocious, it's a really bad sign for a company, when they drop quality acceptance measures. People want a full, good quality game, the kind of stoneage old plain shooter doesn't motivate anyone to play, so they do drop sooner or later. The assumption of the game kind of drawing more and more players in isn't working. I believe the game is instead losing players as they become disappointed.
I think people do check back once in a while what the game is like, but they find in context of the whole rather small changes and not much happening. My entire friend list is offline these days, no one is playing MWO (and I have quit too, despite having "donated" money for it, because I was actually expecting this to become a good game).

at least we got a game dude, and its free. and its awsome imo.

Karpundir, on 07 December 2013 - 03:14 PM, said:

I formed up a 12-man at 4pm EST and we failed to find a single match for 30 minutes. We then tried again at 5:30pm for another 20 minutes and still no 12-man to drop with.

It could be the holidays. It could be exam time. It could be a loss in the desire to play 12-mans with the still persistent jump-sniping, plus artillery/air-striking meta.

Of the many players who have been playing regularly for the past 6+ months, they are citing loss of interest in the game as the main reason. There are 2 new consoles out, which have grabbed some attention away from PC gaming in general. There was a great Steam sale over the Black Friday weekend, of which I know at least a dozen guys in my merc corp who have been playing games bought during that sale.

What I can say is that some of you are probably right that we will see things pick up when the new Sabre pack comes out. A new map will help things spike a bit. The real invigorating feature for this game is not UI 2.0, but will be the lobby system where we can set-up private matches, assign the right 'Mechs to A, B and C lances (so those new spawn locations actually have some tactical value) and, of course, a PURPOSE to play this game, which is right now only the competitive player run leagues or the random, yet infrequent, Challenges that are hosted by PGI.

The empty promises on deliverables by PGI are wearing the patience of the most staunchest of MWO supporters paper thin. I have been playing this game continuously since closed beta with no breaks, so I consider myself a pretty loyal customer having bought both a Founder's and Phoenix pack, MC and I just can't bring myself to financially support this game without something real in return. If PGI wants to run this game to make money, give us a reason to spend it on something useful... not some Christmas items and pretty colours!

I hope you don't mean pay to win advantages...

[Thaygood]

Hey, don't forget life happens, I started a second job and that has cut a lot of my playing time out.

[Hexenhammer]

Play station 4
xBoxOne
Thanksgiving
Christmas
The Goons have left (cheer!)

And MWO is a niche game. It's too complicated for the average CoD player to figure out and won't ever have a "big" active player base. Hell. Age of Empires Online has only 12k active players and MWO will be doing great if it can accomplish that.

[Smitti]

We had an xblox one arrive on our front doorstep on launch day, to my surprise and wifey's irritation (and a mysterious charge to the credit card thanks to my misinterpretation of the Day One Edition ROE on xbox live actually being a pre-order...whoops!)

It's still in it's box in our wardrobe.

Without speculating on the number of active players falling off, I will say I've noticed a large increase in players I WANT to drop with. Be that the COD-twitch-crybabies losing interest or a shift in my ranking (finally in danger of dragging my KRD/WL out of the mud:P) the attitudes of higher proportion of the guys and girls I drop/against with is quite a bit better, players who WANT to coordinate, cooperate, listen to/give advice etc and not just trash-talk and blame their team/the game when they leeroy jenkins their way out of the mechwarrior gene pool.

I know we ideally want this to be as popular as possible (more paying players helps secure MWO's future i guess) but I for one do not miss the peanut gallery i had to play alongside for much of my time in this game.

Edited by Smittiferous, 07 December 2013 - 07:06 PM.

[Delas Ting Usee]

High Ping makes this great game unplayable....unless PGI fixes/checks/tweaks it's severs...a bunch of us aren't playing as much.

[Grrzoot]

I would agree that a majority drop in pops this time of year is due to people buying the new systems, playing the new games etc. And also a bit of burnout, lack of content. Every mmo type game goes through these throes this time of the year where you see a dynamic shift in the player base for a couple of weeks, or months. It is also a major time of year for player bases to shift from one game to another, opening up new experiences with friends as they get into other games. It happens to them all.

[MisterPlanetarian]

RichAC, on 07 December 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:

Piracy, Hackers, EA SPORTS migration(LOL),

PC gaming is dying? Are you insane? The fact that you think EA Sports going console killed it means you probably are, no argument needed. Seriously though, The PC has gone nowhere but up but the same can be said for gaming in general. Just because consoles ended up with the largest market share does not mean PC gaming went backwards. The PC is still the platform of innovation. Esports had it's origins on the PC and is to this day dominated by PC titles.

The only reason why consoles ever made it big is because they appeal to a casual consumer electronics customer base who have no real knowlege of the products they are buying. A PC is harder to get used to and waaaay more expensive unless you want to learn to be atleast a little tech savvy. Pre Builds are usually overpriced as hell and sometimes won't even let you upgrade them.

Piracy can be a problem but the industry is not helping with some of its insane DRM policies, piracy got an increase when demos were phased out for example. The Extremely large amount of games aswell as the pricetag with DLC's included is also one of the reasons piracy is so high, it's hard for the hobbyist to afford everything they want if its 80 dollars all in all per title.

People forget that steam started off as a DRM system for Half-Life 2 but ended up as a store when Valve saw the digiltal distribution market as a completely untapped source of revenue. The Reason people put up with Steam is because it offers great value compared to traditional retail with its many sales and generally lower prices.

TL;DR PC is not dying.

[Thorqemada]

Btw. is there an article floating around in the Internet about the new Consoles that may be the last of its kind as Mobile Devices take over and each generation of Consoles sold less then the former while have rising costs at any front.
PC gaming is also strong as ever and Steam had recently a new record of Players online.