94 replies to this topic

[Tyrnea Smurf]

I'll start this assuming there has been no announcement from PGI of any kind of when they think the Clan Omni's will go up for c-bill (ie free) release as of Jan 6 2014 the date of this post.

First off I highly doubt they would release more than 1 or 2 starting out for c bill release in june (if memory serves the locust was the phoenix mech released when the phoenix mechs were delivered in oct - however I don't recall if it was a MC exclusive for a week before cbill release, or if it was open for cbills from the start of the phoenix arrivals) Simply because if like phoenix they continue to sell the clan collection beyond the delivery date, they will not want to have their high priced pixels of big stompy robots compete against the free priced pixels of big stompy robots.

Second given the some what limited inventory of mechs they can release and stay consistent with the time line and lore, which means PGI in many ways wants to limit just how fast they c-bill out those Omni's. IIRC the Clans at the time of the invasion period had a total of 16 Onmi chassis they used in there tomains at the time of the invasion. (I'm listing them by Clan designation: Adder *, Nova *, Executioner, Dire Wolf *, Fire Moth, Gargoyle, Hellbringer, Ice Ferret, Kit Fox *, Stormcrow *, Summoner *, Timber Wolf *, Mad Dog, Mist Lynx, Viper, Warhawk * *denotes a clan collection chassis)

Thus they might very well want to stretch out the cbill release schedule on those Omni's. Long term PGI's problem is mech saturation where any thing they release is either countered or trumped by an older model that can be configured to perform as well or better than the new release. The dreaded DOA syndrome.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Given that, for IS v Clan matches, they need at least one mech of each weight class and preferably more, I expect we'll see June have the release of the Uller, Blackhawk, Thor, and Daishi, and July will have the Puma, Ryoken, Mad Cat, and Masakari.

This will give Clan players more variety faster, and will establish something of a minimum base collection for them to choose from. They can resume the 1/month schedule going forward after that. It might well boost revenue a little, to, as they'll be available for MC at the same time they can be bought for c-bills.

The one problem with that schedule would be that there wouldn't be much early access for package buyers. There is an alternative release pattern that could solve that problem, but it seems unlikely.

Namely, release four other Clan mechs in June, and starting with July put out 2/month of the package mechs. I could see them doing something like Koshi, Fenris, Vulture, Gladiator, available for c-bills and MC in June when the package goes live, and then doing Uller/Blackhawk in July, Thor/Masakari in August, etc. This would be audacious and require a bit more resource investment by PGI, but would be a super nice surprise for the Clan players (and let the package buyers get a bit more for their money in terms of early access).

[Lancer Deistler]

Sorry for thread necrophilea, but we have a confirmation for the predicted release pattern:
https://soundcloud.c...odcasts#t=33:13

That raises questions, how they would address the issue mentioned by this post:

Redshift2k5, on 18 December 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

Obviously something has to change. Can't have a whole month where every C-bill Clan player can only play a Kit Fox.

Having a full suite of 4 mechs ready on day one, then one additional mech per month, would be much more balanced.

Maybe there are 3 other Clan chassis (medium, heavy, assault) already produced but not announced that will be comming in June?
Mad Dog anyone ?

Edited by Lancer Deistler, 22 February 2014 - 02:05 PM.

[Josef Nader]

You're joking right? PGI wants to milk their cash cow. You want to play with your icnonic clan mech this year? You're going to have to pay for it.

Remember, PGI is a business, and they need to extract cash from you to keep the lights on. You want to play with the Timber Wolf? You're gonna pay at least $55.

[Gyrok]

If you want them early, pay for them.

Why should I pay $240 to have them all in June, just so you can buy half of them for C-bills that same month?

They would lose FAR more people who PAID for them UPFRONT with $ if that happened, than they would lose who are complaining about F2P not getting them soon enough.

Who do you think they want to keep happy? You lot that are not paying, or the group shilling out $10 per variant?

I will let you do the math on that one.

[Malcolm Vordermark]

I predict they will stick to the 1 mech a month schedule for the clans. If they released 4 chassis at once they would probably sell fewer individual mechs than if they stagger the release. It makes me a little sad but I think it is the better business move.

As for the concern about clanners only having the Kit Fox until another chassis is relased. I'm sure we will have trial clan mechs.

Edited by Rouken, 22 February 2014 - 03:50 PM.

[Sephlock]

Redshift2k5, on 18 December 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

Obviously something has to change. Can't have a whole month where every C-bill Clan player can only play a Kit Fox.

Having a full suite of 4 mechs ready on day one, then one additional mech per month, would be much more balanced.

Or they could reverse it and release the Dire Wolf first .

[Nauht]

Lancer Deistler, on 18 December 2013 - 11:34 AM, said:

To clarify, this thread is about the dates when the Mechs are available for C-Bills.
Everyone who bought a Package will get the included content on 17.06.2014.

Prizes according to sarna.net:
Kit Fox: 5,368,837 C-Bills
Adder: 7,021,688 C-Bills
Stormcrow: 14,771,112 C-Bills
Nova: 11,586,250 C-Bills
Thor: 21,320,834 C-Bills
Timberwolf: 24,233,124 C-Bills
Dire Wolf: 29,350,000 C-Bills
Masakari: 26,425,323 C-Bills

That's the original Clan power and omni-mech capable vs fixed IS weapons/hardpoints.

Given that PGI are gonna make Clans suck as much as IS there is no justification for these prices. They should be in line with what we got now.

[Sandpit]

Nauht, on 22 February 2014 - 05:34 PM, said:

Given that PGI are gonna make Clans suck as much as IS

Well thankfully we have other opinions here.

[Rubidiy]

Looks like a cashgrab before instinction.

I don't think there's a possibility that PGI will change this schedule. They're failing to deliver any REAL game content over and over again. If anything, now it's even worse than it had been before UI2.0 launched, because current UI is nowhere intuitive. Newcomers are doomed in this game while devoted players cann't even see engines installed in their mechs... Still nothing to attract new people to play this game, still nothing to draw back those who left it until any of PGI's promises will be fulfiled. So, how do you think, what's this game's fate???
No one was hired to develop the game itself. By the time when anything resembling CW or new game mode appears, there won't be many people left to play this game. You won't hear in any podcast words "we're going to support this game for a year and be done with it...". You hear "we have great plans for years to come, so buy Clan packages and don't worry...". Sure...


P.S. I do sincerely hope that I'm totally wrong.

[Nauht]

Sandpit, on 23 February 2014 - 01:40 AM, said:

Well thankfully we have other opinions here.

Strawman much?

Ok, replace "suck" with "good" or "equal" or "burritos". Whatever.
Doesn't change the fact that they shouldn't be worth the Sarna prices

[Rubidiy]

C-bill cost of Clan mechs is a least thing I would worry about.

[Craig Steele]

Redshift2k5, on 18 December 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

Obviously something has to change. Can't have a whole month where every C-bill Clan player can only play a Kit Fox.

Having a full suite of 4 mechs ready on day one, then one additional mech per month, would be much more balanced.

I don't get this at all. You can still play F2P with all your IS mechs in June.

PGI have a program of releasing one mech a month which is F2P, but if you wnat early access you can pay $$. Why would that change just because their Clan?

I can see why someone handing over $150 for the first 4 / 5 mechs would be upset if that got them 30 days 'exclusive' use.

If you want Clan mechs early you can buy them.

[aniviron]

Craig Steele, on 23 February 2014 - 02:40 AM, said:

I don't get this at all. You can still play F2P with all your IS mechs in June.

PGI have a program of releasing one mech a month which is F2P, but if you wnat early access you can pay $$. Why would that change just because their Clan?

I can see why someone handing over $150 for the first 4 / 5 mechs would be upset if that got them 30 days 'exclusive' use.

If you want Clan mechs early you can buy them.

Translation: "If you don't have a couple hundred extra dollars to spare, **** you."

Free to play games live and die based on whether or not there is a large group of people playing the game just as much as they do based on how much the whales spend. Screwing over a huge group of players doesn't sound like a great plan to me.

It'd make a lot more sense to release four mechs right away so everyone gets to play, and stagger the next four so that the whales can still feel smugly superior about being rich.

It does seem a bit weird that someone would be upset by another player getting to use the same chassis as them "too soon." What you're paying for is the mechs, the extra goodies that come with them, and not having to grind out over a million cbills worth of cash for the three direwolves you're mastering; indeed, the product sale page mentions nothing about making you a special snowflake for eight months. It'd be awfully shallow if seeing someone else getting to use something that they paid for a different way than you made you mad.

[Craig Steele]

aniviron, on 23 February 2014 - 03:50 AM, said:

Translation: "If you don't have a couple hundred extra dollars to spare, **** you."

Free to play games live and die based on whether or not there is a large group of people playing the game just as much as they do based on how much the whales spend. Screwing over a huge group of players doesn't sound like a great plan to me.

It'd make a lot more sense to release four mechs right away so everyone gets to play, and stagger the next four so that the whales can still feel smugly superior about being rich.

It does seem a bit weird that someone would be upset by another player getting to use the same chassis as them "too soon." What you're paying for is the mechs, the extra goodies that come with them, and not having to grind out over a million cbills worth of cash for the three direwolves you're mastering; indeed, the product sale page mentions nothing about making you a special snowflake for eight months. It'd be awfully shallow if seeing someone else getting to use something that they paid for a different way than you made you mad.

Your assumption is so far off it's not worth commenting on.

The point I am making is that the game will still be F2P, and EVERY player can still play IS mechs they have earned / paid / acquired.

The business model PGI have had in place has always been we will release one mech a month (increasing to 2 soon though) and if you want early access you can pay for it.

If anyone wants access to the mech sooner they are allowing you to buy it, otherwise F2P with the mechs that are F2P.

To say "I can't play a F2P game cause I don't have a few hundred dollars for Clan mechs" is just silly. You can. No one is getting screwed over, they're not changing the rules (they're actually ramping it up with 2 mechs a month)

Games will still be balanced, You can still grind out C-Bills for upgrades / mech acquisitions so whats the issue here?

Suddenly we don't like PGI's proven business model (proven in the sense that it's worked for them so far) when Clans arrive?

[Josef Nader]

Free players who want to play with Clan tech will have the Kit Fox right away. The Nova is solid and not far behind. If there is a specific chassis you want to play, it only costs you $55, not the $240 I there down for the Masakari pack.

Once again, PGI wants to sell as many of these packs as possible. Forcing free players to wait months to play the hot ticket mechs is a great way to get people to spend money.

[Lancer Deistler]

This post will be a bit long, but to state my recent thoughts of PGI's buisness strategies and it's impact on the game it has to be this way.

First things first, the number of chassis PGI seems to be able to deliver per month. With the phoenix and clan packs, while maintaining the shedule of one mech per month, PGI has shown their capability to produce 2 – 3 mech chassis a month. The qustion is why we don't see that many chassis released in that timeframe? One answer of course is, they want to create this big surprises with the packs. This is totally fine with me. But my concern is, that it is definatly also a monetisation scheme. They artificially delay the release of already existing content to maximize their earnings. A player, who is willing to put money into mwo, will only invest a certain amount of his income per month. We saw the big debate about how PGI lost it's mind with the pricing of the clan mech packs. This prices passed the threshold for the acceptance of prices. But if you spend the same amount of money on a longer period of time this threshold will not be passed, simply because you forget and in this way you loose the overview of your spendings. Later in the above linked podcast Bryan stated, that they try out releasing 2 mechs a month, one IS one clan. This seems to be a test, if they can raise the monthly income per player. He statet, that it's on the playerbase to choose with their wallet, if they want that release pattern of 2 mechs per month to continue. If PGI will not reach a certain goal, and they would be better of selling the mechs in 2 month, this welcome pattern will not be continued. This will mean, we get one clan mech on one month and a IS counterpart next month. This will delay the pace new clan chassis will be implemented.

Some posts in this thread state, that PGI would anger buyers of the clan pack, if they would release the chassis of that pack early. While this is certainly true, i would argue that the comming release pattern hurts the buyers of that packs as much as the f2p players. The first thing what comes to mind is, that the camo patterns might not be availiable for the shiny new mechs. In the past (with phoenix pack) the camo patterns of the early access mechs were not availiable until the c-bill versions are released and a customisation sale for this chassis was launched. That means, even if you buy a Timberwolf pack, you are not able to customize your mechs untill end of this year. Another point is, as mentioned above, new clan chassis will only be availiable after all pack chassis are released. So while you can enjoy the chassis earlier than f2p players, after you mastered them all (maybe 2-3 month) you have to wait for new clan content until next year like the f2p players.

Well since different mech chassis are more a matter of diversity than a matter of core gameplay this all might be ok. But it could also lead to a delay of certain core game mechanics like the change in matchmaking and CW. Bryan mentions in the interview, that they will change the matchmaker so that in pug games there will be always 3 lights, 3 mediums, 3 heavys and 3 assaults. The problem with this is, if there is only a light clan mech in june, we will have a over saturation of light mechs on the clan side. We've seen such a oversaturation this month with the firestarter. While the IS side will be fine, clan light pilots, f2p players and clan pack owners alike, will see increased wait times and failed to find a match situations, if the new matchmaker system will be implemented since then. If it is not implemented, the oversaturation of lights, combined with the engine cap, might result in many steamrolls of clanners, until at least one chassis of each weight type is availiable for c-bills (09.2014). This is of course dependant, of the ratio between f2p and clan pack clan players. On one hand PGI might see the need of changing how the engine cap on clan mechs work, if the described scenario occures. On the other hand it will be an unfun experiance for all clanners. The same problem will occure in CW IS vs. Clans. It can only be implemented if the saturation of all weight classes is even, or the clanners will have a hard struggle to compete. So PGI might not release CW IS vs. Clans before 09.2014 because of this, even if they could technically do it. If that would be the case, then the monetisation clearly is more important to them then the product or the customers (f2p and paying alike).

Edited by Lancer Deistler, 23 February 2014 - 04:46 AM.

[Craig Steele]

Lancer Deistler, on 23 February 2014 - 04:42 AM, said:

This post will be a bit long, but to state my recent thoughts of PGI's buisness strategies and it's impact on the game it has to be this way.

They artificially delay the release of already existing content to maximize their earnings.

i would argue that the comming release pattern hurts the buyers of that packs as much as the f2p players. The first thing what comes to mind is, that the camo patterns might not be availiable for the shiny new mechs.


Well since different mech chassis are more a matter of diversity than a matter of core gameplay this all might be ok. But it could also lead to a delay of certain core game mechanics like the change in matchmaking and CW.

I don't see that they are artificially delaying anything, they said one mech a month, was their goal, now their moving it up to 2 mechs a month. Thats progress imo, not delaying.

I don't disagree with your sentiment here, but the peson making the purchase does that with the knowledge and they are still making the choice to buy. So I guess if they are buying knowing the downside, you can understand why they would be wondering why did they bother if there was limited upside (eg, why did I pay $150 if I could have just waited a month and got them for free from my C-Bills).

To put it another way, if PGI did release more than one Clan mech 30 days after the pack a lot of players would probably 'hold off' the next package promotion they have believing they could get it cheaper or free after 30 days. Remember some of these guys are buying 6 months in advance, waiting another 30 days is nothing.

Assuming the Clans are balanced as they have indicated they will be, I don't see that any other implementation will be affected, if the games we have now are balanced, CW is not going to change that.

I just think if they did deviate from their standard marketing arrangement, they need a good reason as the risk of upsetting the paying customer is pretty big. They are offering with the sales early access. I agree they don't define how long that is, but the precedent sets an expectation, and PGI have learnt some lessons about not meeting expectations and the fall out.

[Lancer Deistler]

Craig Steele, on 23 February 2014 - 05:06 AM, said:

I don't see that they are artificially delaying anything, they said one mech a month, was their goal, now their moving it up to 2 mechs a month. Thats progress imo, not delaying.


Assuming the Clans are balanced as they have indicated they will be, I don't see that any other implementation will be affected, if the games we have now are balanced, CW is not going to change that.

I also see it as an improvement, that they will beginn to release 2 mechs a month. But as i said, from Bryan statements i understand, that if the money doesn't come in as they planned to, they will not continue this release pattern. If they have the capacity to do 2 - 3 mechs a month, not releasing them due to financial aspects is in my eyes artificial delay.

While the balancing of clans as a whole might be achieved, as i mentioned the saturation of each weightclass might offset this balancing. If the majority of f2p clanners only have a light mech to choose from in the first month and a medium in the next, the dropweight of clanners in general might be low in comparision to IS in that timeframe. I don't know how the ratio of f2p and clan pack clanners will be in the end, but if there are more f2p clanners the balancing might suffer in favor of IS.

Edited by Lancer Deistler, 23 February 2014 - 05:32 AM.

[Craig Steele]

Lancer Deistler, on 23 February 2014 - 05:31 AM, said:

While the balancing of clans as a whole might be achieved, as i mentioned the saturation of each weightclass might offset this balancing. If the majority of f2p clanners only have a light mech to choose from in the first month and a medium in the next, the dropweight of clanners in general might be low in comparision to IS in that timeframe. I don't know how the ratio of f2p and clan pack clanners will be in the end, but if there are more f2p clanners the balancing might suffer in favor of IS.

Sure, I see your point.

But Clan mechs and Clan faction are two very different things in MW:O.

IS Factions will have Clan mechs from day one, and I assume Clan faction pilot will still be able to roll out in IS mechs they have previously bought / earned etc.

So from a CW point of view, I can't see there will be an impact IF the techs are balanced. If they're not balanced, well a big part of me thinks a lot of Clanners are already buying the packs so I think they will be fine, but your point is valid if the F2P Clanners make up a majority.