53 replies to this topic

[Durant Carlyle]

Draconis March, on 16 December 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

No sir. There's a difference between a fan and a fan[word that is censored because it offends PGI]. The difference between the two is that one is blind and ignorant and will bend over and take everything while the other is able to think rationally about things.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a whale looks like. They think that the project in its current state--after this latest development--is still worth throwing money at. I will go back to supporting this game with my money when they prove that it's a game worth supporting. (That means when they make it clear that they're going to put actual content in the game to increase its longevity rather than make desperate attempts to milk the remaining whales for every penny possible.)

It's not fun enough for you to support it. And that's your choice.

To me, this game is still very fun. It can be a bit frustrating at times as I drive light 'Mechs and we get blown away very quickly from long range all too often. And they will be adding some content in the near future. A lot of features were waiting for UI2.0, and that will finally be released within a month or two. Perhaps after they get that nice and stable, the pace of development can be sped up a bit.

I have two Founder accounts (this Legendary and one Elite), Overlord and Saber on this account, and I have purchased MC several times on both accounts. I think I've gotten my money's worth, and it will only get better from here.

I will be purchasing the $240 Clan 'Mech package sometime in February most likely. My budget will need the time until then to recover from Christmas shopping and New Year's parties and stuff.

Atheus, on 16 December 2013 - 09:56 AM, said:

So... we have absolutely no idea how they're planning to balance clan tech, but suffice it to say that clan mechs should be worlds stronger than IS mechs. You think it's a good idea for paying players to have access to clan tech first? At first glance it seems reasonable — you pay, you get better stuff, right? But what happens to the players who aren't planning to pony up real cash? There is basically no reason to play the game if you're going to be stuck in inferior mechs, right? At the very least it gives you a pretty good reason to go spend some time looking at other games, at least until the clan mechs are available to all players. Maybe they have a plan for that. I sure hope they do.

Evidently you haven't seen this. They are planning to have the same restrictions on OmniMechs that were in tabletop. No engine adjustment, no armor adjustment, no internal structure adjustment, etc. Clan 'Mechs will be SLOW, and some of them will be under-armored.

[Wildstreak]

Durant Carlyle, on 15 December 2013 - 09:09 PM, said:

Not once in any of my posts did I say saving for the $100 package was easy.

If you literally cannot earmark a small amount per pay period to be "not spent" to save up for something, then you are in the financial minority. The majority of us (even those without a lot of income) waste money by spending it on fast food and other frivolous purchases that we don't need.

As you have explained, you don't have disposable income.

That doesn't mean The Boar's Head has a higher value than $30. It simply means some people will have to pay more than its value for it because they cannot afford to get the best deal on MC.

When you Tsk'd, you did say it was easy.

Got stats to back up those claims on who is in what financial group?

I stated that the $30 value was FOR YOU, not for everyone as you insinuated by what you wrote.

[Grishnakh]

Atheus, on 16 December 2013 - 09:56 AM, said:

So... we have absolutely no idea how they're planning to balance clan tech, but suffice it to say that clan mechs should be worlds stronger than IS mechs. You think it's a good idea for paying players to have access to clan tech first? At first glance it seems reasonable — you pay, you get better stuff, right? But what happens to the players who aren't planning to pony up real cash? There is basically no reason to play the game if you're going to be stuck in inferior mechs, right? At the very least it gives you a pretty good reason to go spend some time looking at other games, at least until the clan mechs are available to all players. Maybe they have a plan for that. I sure hope they do.

As told in the following post Clan Mechs won't be completly imba. Especially the fixed armor will make Vultures, Lokis, Ullers and some other Clan Mechs very vulnerable. Personally I like the way to put balance over fluff. I don't want the best mech in the game! In my opinion there shouldn't be a "best mech" in the game! All I read seems to go in the right direction.
The price for the presale is almost the same as for the phoenix package or the starter package. So it's not getting more expensive. When the package is delivered in june the first clan mech will be offered for CBills for sure!
If you want a Mad Cat in June you have to pay or you have to wait. Sooner or later you can get one with Cbills. Till then you can use your other mechs. I really don't see the problem...

[Atheus]

Durant Carlyle, on 16 December 2013 - 10:34 AM, said:

Evidently you haven't seen this. They are planning to have the same restrictions on OmniMechs that were in tabletop. No engine adjustment, no armor adjustment, no internal structure adjustment, etc. Clan 'Mechs will be SLOW, and some of them will be under-armored.

Yep, you're right. I had not seen that. Now that I have seen it, though, my stance hasn't really changed, to be honest. Bear with me for a moment while I make a comparison that may seem a little thin - imagine if a free to play mmo game like "Neverwinter" that just released a new expansion required players to pay cash to have access to the new content. Paying players get to see the new bosses, get the new gear, and so on - and also get to use that new, marginally stronger equipment to PvP against the free players. The backlash would be pretty intense - as I feel it will be for PGI.

Whether or not you want to use clan tech, if you don't intend to buy it with USD, you don't get the choice until much later on. That means there will be a big chunk of the player base that "takes a break" with the release of clan tech, and you can be certain only a portion of them will return. That's a pretty big risk, unless their strategy is to actually trim the player base down to paying customers only. There's another one that at first glance would seem like not such a bad idea, if a little cold, but it could turn out quite badly as well. If your player base is fairly small as it is, suddenly diminishing it further can potentially cause a chain reaction leading to total collapse.

[Jaenos]

Yes we support the game, but it is insane to ask that much money for a single purchase. For the price of most of these packs, I can get a year subscription in other MMOs. So yeah, don't buy them.

If these packs flop, they MIGHT learn people don't want to pay massive fees to get the powerful gear. I assume it is powerful because it is clan tech and omnimechs and, if it is anything like the books, that stuff is OP. We need to NOT buy them as a way of telling them that not only should they not price stuff that high, but to not sell power. #1 rule of a microtransaction game is DO NOT SELL POWER. Cosmetic only and boosts. Nobody wants this to be another korean Pay to Win.

If you buy the packs, you are telling them it is ok and that they can get away with selling stuff for that value rather than making them just earnable. You know, like have modes like TF2's MVM were we fight a bunch of Clan mechs and at the end, earn a clan tech item. After enough wins, get enough parts to get a clan 'mech. It would encourage actually PLAYING the game for more people.

So yeah vote with your wallet. If you buy the expensive packs, you are telling them big microtransactions for the good stuff is fine. if you don't buy that stuff, you are saying nobody wants your stuff at that price. We can buy some small things, but we want to actually EARN cool gear in game. If we can't earn the cool clan mechs, you take a lot of the fun thoughts about the BT universe. After all, IS got Clan tech and omnimechs by beating clanners and taking it, not just buying it from some market. Should be a way to earn it PLUS an option to just buy it if you want it faster. Make C-Bills actually worth something and MC to just get stuff faster if you really want it, including clan mechs and hero mechs. Simple cosmetic stuff can stay MC only cause it doesn't effect anything.

I also made a thread called "thoughts about MC" or something like that about ways they can encourage people to keep wanting to play without horribly busting their wallets, including small stipends for the founders that got this game off the ground like some other games do for subscribers and beta people. I also referance other games that got Free to pay models right like Star Trek Online.

[Grishnakh]

Atheus, on 16 December 2013 - 03:17 PM, said:

Yep, you're right. I had not seen that. Now that I have seen it, though, my stance hasn't really changed, to be honest. Bear with me for a moment while I make a comparison that may seem a little thin - imagine if a free to play mmo game like "Neverwinter" that just released a new expansion required players to pay cash to have access to the new content. Paying players get to see the new bosses, get the new gear, and so on - and also get to use that new, marginally stronger equipment to PvP against the free players. The backlash would be pretty intense - as I feel it will be for PGI.

Whether or not you want to use clan tech, if you don't intend to buy it with USD, you don't get the choice until much later on. That means there will be a big chunk of the player base that "takes a break" with the release of clan tech, and you can be certain only a portion of them will return. That's a pretty big risk, unless their strategy is to actually trim the player base down to paying customers only. There's another one that at first glance would seem like not such a bad idea, if a little cold, but it could turn out quite badly as well. If your player base is fairly small as it is, suddenly diminishing it further can potentially cause a chain reaction leading to total collapse.

Maybe the strategy is that there have to be mostly IS Players or there will be no invasion. In that case it would be just Clans fighting Clans. I like the idea that only some players will play clans in the beginning and some kind of invasion will really happen

[Atheus]

Grishnakh, on 17 December 2013 - 06:19 AM, said:

Maybe the strategy is that there have to be mostly IS Players or there will be no invasion. In that case it would be just Clans fighting Clans. I like the idea that only some players will play clans in the beginning and some kind of invasion will really happen

Do you still like the idea that the players taking the IS side aren't doing so purely because that's the side they want to play, but because those are the scraps they are left with if they don't want to/can't pay in? I guess your answer is implied, since you should have already considered that, but I see it pretty much boiling down to a case of paid content.

They already have this dynamic going in the game by making new mechs available for MC before making them available for C-Bills, but by introducing a whole new TYPE of mech with that same scheme is a few orders of magnitude worse. Look at the size of that package. Perhaps they are going to adjust their rate of mech releases with the clan release, but with Phoenix they did no such thing. They're still making phoenix mechs available one by one to C-Bill players. How many months will it take for a free player to get access to an assault clan mech?

[B E E L Z E B U B]

overall i agree, im willing to put some money on mwo but it has to be reasonable. it cant be like buying a brand new phone or game system. it should be more along the lines of buying a reasonable dinner.

i shouldnt have to think so hard how badly i want it in order to get it. it should be something that if it looks cool i should be able to decide on the moment with no fuss that i want it and be able to acquire it.

yes i want the clan package but im not ready to pay that much for it. now a days people are in no hurry to put out any real money for games anyway... so they make you put out serious amounts of it.

bottom line,

mwo is too expensive for what it actually gives you back.

[Mawai]

The biggest issue with the monetization system is that it drives art work and not feature development.

Returns on artwork - mech and cockpit item sales show a direct correlation of work to income.

Unfortunately, the game development which supplies the features that we believe will keep players interested and playing the game longer has an impact on retention and player numbers that is hard to assess ... even harder to assess is the revenue numbers that the investment in development returns. So when you present a bean counter with the two options ... the emphasis goes to art work.

Hopefully, the current state of dissatisfaction with the game will cool clan pack sales in the short run and encourage the folks holding the purse strings to realize that the game will be DOA at some point if they don't put in the effort on feature development.

[Atheus]

Karma Police, on 17 December 2013 - 07:45 AM, said:

mwo is too expensive for what it actually gives you back.

This sums it up pretty nicely. I've paid much less for much more when it comes to games. We'll see how much UI 2.0 contributes to the game soon, but for the last year we've been seeing pretty much nothing but minor debugging and balance adjustments when the game is still basically offering the same mundane thing as in closed beta.

[Fut]

Durant Carlyle, on 14 December 2013 - 04:38 PM, said:

Incorrect.

They've had the base Clan 'Mech art done for a while now. Putting a gold skin on isn't that much work. Besides, they know that the base Clan packages will be the REAL money-maker here. The $500 donation option won't be used anywhere near as often.

Any money we give them right now will help keep the development going long enough to get the real content of the game delivered, at which point people will come back and start spending money again, which will help keep the development going for even more content. That's how the cycle goes.

You are free to be paranoid and believe PGI/IGP are out to get you. While I am disappointed in some of the design decisions they have made, I still choose to support them. Not as enthusiastically as when I first started playing though.

You mean the "real content" that should have been in development for the past couple of years?
Where has all the money gone so far?

[IC Rafe]

drinniol, on 15 December 2013 - 12:59 PM, said:

Lordy lordy lordy. What are you smoking, OP? Let's compare to, say, Path of Exile. Weapon effects go for as much as $28 or as little as $2.50, there's a $110 pet and a $2.50 pet.

If you're looking to spend $5 at a time buy a week of premium time and use the extra CBills. If you like the game and want to support the devs pay more. QED.

honestly, path of exile is a bad comparison. Nothing you can get in that game for cash (other than stash tabs), is anything other than a visual effect. I have no idea of what income they have or expect, but the entire game is totally free to play if you want to. no special classes with some different ability's, no items which can't be aquired through the game (hell, no items even, last time i played it), no extra income or anything that affects the gameplay in any way, other than visuals.

I kinda miss the games which where just developed, and then released. no early access {Scrap}, no broken promises. You bought it when it was finished, and it had to stand on its own then (give or take a patch). If you waited a month, you could see some gameplay, hear from others what they liked and didn't like, and you knew what you where getting. With early access games and things like that, you just have no idea what you're getting because it hasn't been created yet.

[Blurry]

it is all whack but people are suckers and love the IP so they think they can get away with it.
So far they have been proven right and doubt that will change.

grind and a bad MM killed the game for me.
Then everything else kinda put a steak through the heart.
Ya totally regret the money I dumped.
complete waste.
thankfully about 85 bucks or so.

Edited by Blurry, 17 December 2013 - 04:05 PM.

[Ranger403]

I love mechwarrior and like most of you i hate the price of this game to have the content.

Bottom line is, as long as people are paying the asking price, they are going to keep selling it at that price.. the problem isnt with what they are charging. The problem is that people are paying it.