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I was raised with the understanding that everyone should take pride in what they do. No matter if you deliver pizzas or perform open heart surgery, what you do matters to someone. It is with this in mind that I offer my vision of how the Mechwarrior Online Clan reveal could have taken place. This belongs in the Upcoming Features Sub-Forum as I think it should be a rallying call for the developers to protect and promote the game in a way that will secure its future.
Imagine for a few minutes a world where MWO was in the hands of a development team that prioritized core design pillars, allocated resources effectively to avoid bottlenecks, and did not find themselves caught in the quagmire of trying to balance complex systems by adding additional complex systems.
May 4th, 2014 7:00PM PST
Furnished with accounts bearing first names and a few with recognizable bloodnames, 12 Clan mechs piloted by PGI employees drop into a random match. Each mech, having been completely modeled, tested, and polished to perfection, is loaded with an absurd amount of armor (4-5x actual numbers) and the loadouts expected for each of the primary config omnimechs.
Over the recently implemented in-game voice communication system at the start of the match, players hear the pre-recorded batchall, “This is Star Commander Jamie Binetti from Clan Jade Falcon. What forces to you pledge to the field this day?” No matter the response, after a few moments the recording will continue, “Bargained well and done…” The players are outgunned and outclassed by the buffed Clan mechs, and the resulting battle will be quickly finished.
After only a single match, the forums and other MWO communities would erupt with activity as the 12 defeated players, who would definitely have taken plenty of screenshots, share their exciting experience. In reward for their sacrifice, these random 12 players receive a special achievement on their account as, “First of the Fallen.”
May 5th, 6:00-10PM PST
As with the previous night, the Clans will drop again, this time instead of a single match, they play ten matches between 6PM and 10PM PST. To prevent duplicate experiences, a script has been added to the matchmaker that makes it impossible to drop against the Clan mechs more than a single time. This makes the experience special for each player, as well as improves the chances that players will get a chance to be stomped in the invasion.
By the second night, screenshots have flooded the mwomercs forums as well as reddit and the other major sites. Attention is gained by the major gaming sites as the information of the coming event is passed to them by PGI.
May 6th, 8AM PST - MIDNIGHT
PGI employees are called in for the special event. It’s an all hands on deck moment as is common with online games where employees are called in to populate an environment when the game is being shown off in a public event. All the accounts are created as Clan mechwarriors. Each of them pilots a mech with a configuration expected from the reinvisioning of the Clan technology. For the entirety of the day, the mission is to make sure that no player who logs in on May 3rd and plays for a suitable amount of time, walks away without having participated in the invasion of the Clans.
A special one-time achievement is added to each account titled, “Operation Revival Veteran”. By now, the playerbase is excited. The forums are filled with players who are eager to share their experiences being trounced by the mysterious Clan mechs.
May 7th, 7PM PST
In a video uploaded to mwomercs.com, twitter, and seeded into some of the gaming news sites such as TheMittani.com, PGI announces that the Community Warfare map that players have been fighting over for the past three months is going to change dramatically. Along with well edited, “Battle footage” of clan mechs in action, the CW map of the Inner Sphere morphs to show the path of conquest.
Along with the video, it’s announced that each of the six invading Clans will added to the list of factions, with their own rewards earned through the generation of Loyalty Points. The mwomercs.com page is then updated to showcase each of the new Clan mechs, their loadouts, and a primer on the clan equipment entering the game.
The finale of the video includes an announcement of the Operation Revival Packs. Though each of the battlemechs can be purchased with MC for two months (c-bills after that), two Star packs will be available, each with 5 mechs (with all three variants), 90 days of premium time, the purchaser's choice of Clan faction medallions, and paint schemes unique to each Clan. Gold versions of each of the clan mechs are available as a vanity upgrade for $99 apiece.
In addition to the Clan items, new vanity items are announced for the benefit of those MWO players who are not, for whatever reason, excited by the arrival of the Clans. The first item is the long-awaited emblem system that allows players to upload self-created insignia in exchange for MC and place them on their mechs. The second, surprise item is the battlemech War Banner. With a look similar to Japanese battlefields of antiquity, battlemechs now have the ability to let their flags fly, showing off their faction and unit emblems. The war banners are available on a per battlemech basis and can be purchased and modified with MC.
May 8th - 10th
The invasion week events are topped off with a tournament that showcases the strength of the still new UI2.0 by allowing organized teams to compete with the new Clan battlemechs. Coupled with the tournament's start is an announcement that accounts that do show a login for the past two months have been gifted with the injection of the Nova.
While at first glance this might be seen as rewarding players who don't play, it is actually a good faith attempt to bring back players who may have written the game off in the past. The gifted mechs are not lost revenue as they would not have been purchased by inactive accounts anyway. Instead, it results in an increase in revenue and active players, filling the queues and guaranteeing MWO's continued growth.
Denouement:
This was an account of what could have been. It was written with bittersweet memories of long nights where mumble was packed with lances and eight-mans, eager to play a game that we were all excited to see succeed. Everyone makes mistakes, but only some people have the maturity and internal strength to turn those mistakes into lessons. Take pride in what you do, because if you don't, someone will come along and show everyone they can do it better.
Edited by mint frog, 20 December 2013 - 05:23 PM.
