344 replies to this topic

[Ransack]

Teams of larger than four but less than 12

It used to be in game, they took it out "temporarily" almost two years ago.

Before someone says, you just wanna PUG stomp. Stop it. You've been getting your clock cleaned by PuG's according to PGI.

Edited by Ransack, 02 April 2014 - 11:44 AM.

[Wintersdark]

JudgeDeathCZ, on 02 April 2014 - 09:18 AM, said:

And WHAT?
I thought private matches will be basic tool for user created leagues bcuz....well it is PRIVATE!
It will be enough if we can invite enemy leader and give him rights to invite his players and thats all.
I rly do not need more.

Sure, and this is good functionality. But the problem remains - and if this doesn't impact you personally, that's great - that groups of players larger than 4 but smaller than roughly 24 are still stuck unable to play together.

This upsets folks, because Private Matches where billed as the answer to the slighltly-larger-group-of-players, when in fact those groups are still left out in the cold. Not everyone is in Merc Corps with large player lists to draw from (friend and foe)

We really, really need an unrestricted queue. Well, really, we need a proper Looking For Game lobby as multiplayer games had 20 years ago.

[Corwin Maxwell]

Just more Proof that PGI/IGP is a totally incompetent gaming company.

[Corwin Maxwell]

And to King Cobra...honestly I gave up on hoping they would listen to there core old guard players way back. They didn't listen to the early closed beta testers, they didn't listen to the secret testers that actually wanted to test and fix things, they don't listen to anybody but there yes men fan boys. So no they will never listen to those of us that actually love and care for the IP. Also nice pic of the Ghost Bear Kodiak..great TRO that was.

[Rizzelbizzeg]

Ransack, on 02 April 2014 - 11:24 AM, said:

Teams of larger than four but less than 12

It used to be in game, they took it out "temporarily" almost two years ago.

Before someone says, you just wanna PUG stomp. Stop it. You've been getting your clock cleaned by PuG's according to PGI.

Ah, I didn't realize this thread was about that, my bad apparently.

[AlexEss]

Ok for all the nay-sayers.. Let me use a language you might understand. Let´s assume that you are right... Then we can look at MW:O like a poorly steward ship with a big leak. Now since the crew have figured out their posterior from their elbow (again going by your logic the inability to do so was the issue before) and have been well... patching.. some smaller holes. At this point in time they can either get to work with the big hole that they were unable to patch before.. or spend time making sure the intercom system is working... One will most likley sink the ship if not taken care of.. the other will at best be a mild inconvenience but might take valuable time away from keeping the boat afloat... The choice is easy if you actually have something invested in the venture (no your golden overlord badge is not the same as investment...)

No before anyone go all "white knight" over me let me point out that i am speaking as a project manager/producer and how i would look at it, and i regret as much as anyone that we are in a place where they NEED to choose. But that is a matter of fact now and as much as i´d love to T.A.R.D.I.S back to when this venture was started and hand them the future that will not happen. So they way i look at it is. Work with that you have to solve the big issues and then the small will follow along in due time. Only a fool would focus on the small things while the games was falling apart around them.

I have a entire laundry list of things that i would have done different from a producer/manager PoV but that is ashes in the wind as i A: are not the producer B. know exactly what kind of constraints/problems the project had in the beginning. and there is no guarantee that i would not have made mistakes as bad or worse had it been my project.

So to sum things up, you always take care of the big things before you start working on the small ones. A lobby is a very small thing in the grand scheme of things. Yes it is another broken "promise" but at this point it is a game of catchup. Not something anyone can do anything about.

[WarHippy]

AlexEss, on 02 April 2014 - 12:00 PM, said:

Ok for all the nay-sayers.. Let me use a language you might understand. Let´s assume that you are right... Then we can look at MW:O like a poorly steward ship with a big leak. Now since the crew have figured out their posterior from their elbow (again going by your logic the inability to do so was the issue before) and have been well... patching.. some smaller holes. At this point in time they can either get to work with the big hole that they were unable to patch before.. or spend time making sure the intercom system is working... One will most likley sink the ship if not taken care of.. the other will at best be a mild inconvenience but might take valuable time away from keeping the boat afloat... The choice is easy if you actually have something invested in the venture (no your golden overlord badge is not the same as investment...)

No before anyone go all "white knight" over me let me point out that i am speaking as a project manager/producer and how i would look at it, and i regret as much as anyone that we are in a place where they NEED to choose. But that is a matter of fact now and as much as i´d love to T.A.R.D.I.S back to when this venture was started and hand them the future that will not happen. So they way i look at it is. Work with that you have to solve the big issues and then the small will follow along in due time. Only a fool would focus on the small things while the games was falling apart around them.

I have a entire laundry list of things that i would have done different from a producer/manager PoV but that is ashes in the wind as i A: are not the producer B. know exactly what kind of constraints/problems the project had in the beginning. and there is no guarantee that i would not have made mistakes as bad or worse had it been my project.

So to sum things up, you always take care of the big things before you start working on the small ones. A lobby is a very small thing in the grand scheme of things. Yes it is another broken "promise" but at this point it is a game of catchup. Not something anyone can do anything about.

I'm sorry, but what big hole are they trying to patch? The problem is that this team based game makes it hard to even do so efficiently, or even possible at all if you want to do groups of 5-11 so I have a hard time buying that a proper lobby system isn't a big deal. At this point even if the lobby portion was small in the grand scheme of things this ship is leaking like a sieve, and concentrating on that one big hole whatever that may be isn't going to do a lot of good if they can't learn to multitask.

[KingCobra]

AlexEess said=(So to sum things up, you always take care of the big things before you start working on the small ones. A lobby is a very small thing in the grand scheme of things. Yes it is another broken "promise" but at this point it is a game of catchup. Not something anyone can do anything about. )

This AlexEss is where PGI/IGP/DEVS went critically wrong in there development and thinking. Yes MechWarrior-TT-BT was about big shinny robots battling it out among the stars but it was mostly about growing the games and fans through socialization. The biggest growth of MechWarrior was through in-game servers and private lobby's 10 million + players and fans.

Those same players and fans have waited since the End of the MSN gamming zones reign and what was left of the old guard players on in-game servers playing MechWarrior leagues NBT and MWL there still waiting for PGI to get there ACT together before MW:0 flops and there is no server/client software left to revive it.

I have played over 50,000+ battles of TT-MechwarriorPC and I can tell you MWO is not a fun game in many ways to give MWO credit it could be the game everyone wants if the devs would just not be so insistent on a COD/WOT game model and go back to the true MechWarrior game model design.

[John Clavell]

Pretty sad, but at this point. I wasn't expecting anything more. Actual game lobbies are not 'low hanging fruit' enough for PGI. End of the day. As sad as it is to say, MWO is a casual driven and focused game. That's not to say one day this wont change. It probably will, but given the experience so far, and what we know of their development cycle I don't expect all of the important features this games needs to step up to the big leagues any time soon. I mean they did mention proper lobbies might will get looked at down the road.

I think the big issue is just plain expectations. PGI didn't manage them well, and the majority of players from past MechWarrior games and even other games in general had them. I think really stepping back and considering it now as to one or two years ago. Typical game productions are expensive and I guess run around a 4 year production cycle to launch a 'gold' title (in many cases longer).

We've really played party to a work in progress live product. Which is odd, even in Free 2 Play markets? Maybe it's not. I keep thinking about EVE Online when that game went live compared to where it is today as a live product. But by that count, come 2015 / 2016 we might have something solid finally, that is more than just a casual focused title.

[Hellen Wheels]

John Clavell, on 02 April 2014 - 02:12 PM, said:

We've really played party to a work in progress live product.

Sir, let me nominate you for speaking the understatement of the year.

"Played party"??

Sir, we have been HAD.

-out-

[Deathlike]

InRev, on 02 April 2014 - 07:39 AM, said:

Hell, even buggy, unfinished, still-in-closed-beta-after-god-knows-how-many-years, vaporware MechwarriorTactics has a rudimentary in-game general lobby where players can find matches. It's basic as hell but it's still some kind of LFG tool.

Seriously, the other MW-IP based game that IGP is funding has a lobby?

Is there's something wrong with the MWO picture?

It begs that question... how was DNF's multiplayer handled by PGI. It is bringing me to some odd sense of curiosity that needs to be satisfied.

Edited by Deathlike, 02 April 2014 - 02:40 PM.

[AlexEss]

WarHippy, on 02 April 2014 - 12:14 PM, said:

I'm sorry, but what big hole are they trying to patch?

Community Warfare... You know the "Massive" part of this MMO. One of the so called "pillars" upon what this game is built... That is the hole they are trying to patch now... That is the thing that could potentially sink the ship should it not come to fruition... That is the thing that makes it borderline, and do pardon my French here... imbecilic to devote any time to put in a lobby before it is done. Especially as there will most likley be the systems for a lobby in said project. Should it against better thinking not be so, it will be a good thing to deal with once community warfare is done. Until the the community will solve said problem them self.

As for @KingCobra Yes they could have but in a rather useless unregulated lobby ala the old games and then left the community up to it´s own devices. It might even been the better solution. But as i pointed out... They did not and now it is pretty much to late to change it. So i am simply being realistic and look at what can be done with the things we have now. Fussing up a storm about the lack of lobby and forcing them to put time in to it is only going to hasten the decline and closing that you so fear.

Edited by AlexEss, 02 April 2014 - 02:53 PM.

[Roadbeer]

AlexEss, on 02 April 2014 - 02:52 PM, said:

Community Warfare... You know the "Massive" part of this MMO. One of the so called "pillars" upon what this game is built... That is the hole they are trying to patch now... That is the thing that could potentially sink the ship should it not come to fruition... That is the thing that makes it borderline, and do pardon my French here... imbecilic to devote any time to put in a lobby before it is done. Especially as there will most likley be the systems for a lobby in said project. Should it against better thinking not be so, it will be a good thing to deal with once community warfare is done. Until the the community will solve said problem them self.

Don't you think the ability to have large group support would be more important than Solaris 7 private matches? And yet, here we are.

So, having said that, would it not be more important to CW to have the ability for faction groups to find each other to play against each other, short of implementing a large group queue, which they have said is low priority until AFTER CW

[AlexEss]

Most people who will be using the private match option know how to find each other already, be it through the forum or any of the comm-hubs like NGNG. Sure it would be easier to find them with a lobby, But in the end they will find each other any way. As i said in my other post a good way to mitigate part of the discomfort would be for PGI to do a marketing push of the comm-hubs and the corp/house/clan-section of the forum.

Not really sure what you are getting at with the first paragraph... Please elaborate.

[KingCobra]

AlexEss said=(As for @KingCobra Yes they could have but in a rather useless unregulated lobby ala the old games and then left the community up to it´s own devices. It might even been the better solution. But as i pointed out... They did not and now it is pretty much to late to change it. So i am simply being realistic and look at what can be done with the things we have now. Fussing up a storm about the lack of lobby and forcing them to put time in to it is only going to hasten the decline and closing that you so fear. )
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AlexEssim sorry but the in-game and lobby systems were not useless and unregulated I have to laugh here because the leagues over 50 since MechWarrior 2 were very structured competitive and gave you a feeling of playing in the MechWarrior BattleTech Universe like MWO wishes it could.

Simply put the individuals who built the leagues from Solaris 1v1- planetary 12v12 teams were very astute and above the IQ level of some major game designers today. And if anything by PGI/IGP not putting a true MechWarrior lobby system in place from the beginning has hastened it own demise.

It was just not the games=PC/MW2-MW4 that made them great it was the fan base, players and leagues and that is why MWO fails in s many ways besides a true PVE role play experience.

[AlexEss]

KingCobra, on 02 April 2014 - 03:14 PM, said:

Simply put the individuals who built the leagues from Solaris 1v1- planetary 12v12 teams were very astute and above the IQ level of some major game designers today. And if anything by PGI/IGP not putting a true MechWarrior lobby system in place from the beginning has hastened it own demise.

Ok.. Let me explain something for you... That you seem to be missing.

That was 10 years ago, and even looking at MW:LL it did not in any wya reach the same level of activity that the "old" games did. So looking at it from a financial point of view there was no indication that such a thing would happen again. The IP was dead as a rock and the old community was in a age bracket that investors do not associate with computer gaming. It was simply to much risk to make such a play. It was amuch wiser choice to go the WoT route and then add on to that. After all WoT (and similar games) was doing very good.

As you said.. without the community those lobbies did not do much. Same thing will happen now. The community will step in and fill the void.

[Novakaine]

Hmm they have moved even faster than I anticipated.
CALLED IT.

[Jon Phoenix]

Wintersdark, on 02 April 2014 - 08:29 AM, said:

I suspect it'll be less.

Let's say me and my 4 buddies want to play together. Currently, we just run two groups, a pair and three, but that's decidedly not ideal. Private matches will let usbplay together at last, yay!

Except that no, they won't, unless we happen to know 19 other available players who can join us. It's not enough to just get your own team of 12, you need to find an opposing team too!

So... We'll just keep dropping public, and PGI will, in its wisdom, assume that's because we don't want a group of 5.

Yep. My friends and I are in the same boat. I think the most we've ever fielded was 10 at once and that was maybe one time.

It's pretty sad that we have to use FOUR third-party sites/resources to play this game: teamspeak for chat, smurfy for mech building, mechstats.com for pilot stats, and now something like mechlobby.com to find other people for private matches, whenever those actually become available.

-Jon (sighs)

[KingCobra]

AlexEss said=(Ok.. Let me explain something for you... That you seem to be missing.

That was 10 years ago, and even looking at MW:LL it did not in any wya reach the same level of activity that the "old" games did. So looking at it from a financial point of view there was no indication that such a thing would happen again. The IP was dead as a rock and the old community was in a age bracket that investors do not associate with computer gaming. It was simply to much risk to make such a play. It was amuch wiser choice to go the WoT route and then add on to that. After all WoT (and similar games) was doing very good.

As you said.. without the community those lobbies did not do much. Same thing will happen now. The community will step in and fill the void. )

Ok AlexxEss let me explain something to you! First off PGI/IGP had 3 great game model designs in MW2-MW4 plus all the expansions and even the MechTech Mod to use as examples as what a MechWarrior game should be core designed upon. One was game of the year and the other in the top10 for there years.

Being brilliant like PGI/IGP is they threw all that out the window and said hey lets make a WOT=WorldOfTanks clone with mechs and lets throw in some FPS/COD elements which MWO turned out more a FPS masked as a team game when in fact it is not.MWO is simply a FPS game with mechs with lumped in players into a queue more like a random free for all that a team based competitive game.

The past MechWarrior games were a proven winner as far as core game design and social implementation.You could make a MechWarripor2-MechWarrior4 updated clone and it would have been better than MWO is right now and more popular with old fans and new players.So I really have to disagree with you on your posts.

[Roland]

Star Citizen in 3 weeks!