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First, there are many, many things I enjoy about MWO. That being said; this is for constructive criticism, so do not think that I do not appreciate what has been done right.
Second, I may not post much but I have read most topics posted on these boards since beta. I have also been a BT fan for almost 20 years, so I know the mechanics and history quite well.
Third, this post is not necessarily directed at any one person/employee/player or even PGI/IGP specifically; it is my opinion and it is intended to be "global" perspective.
Finally, I could very well be wrong in my interpretations or information and it is a large part of the reason I am posting this. If I am wrong, please inform me as I would love to be because it would erase some of my criticisms.
Now that I said that I would like to address some of the issues that are keeping me from playing this game like I did during beta.
Community Warfare: This is BY FAR my biggest complaint for so many reasons. I certainly understand delays. I am willing to wait in order to allow a company to get things right. I am very patient as I do not have the technical or programming knowledge to fully understand what goes on under the hood. What I find completely unacceptable is being outright lied to or misled in order to keep me quiet or to get me, as a consumer, to spend more money. I feel that is exactly what has happened here. CW implementation has been a disaster. We have been promised this over and over again since beta, but have seen nothing! Recently we find out that CW has not even made it off the whiteboard?!
If things were this bad, why did we not know until a few weeks ago? We find out that IGP had forced reallocation of PGI assets to other divisions this late after launch!? Normally I would say something along the lines of "hey, it is their company after all" or something like that, but the Phoenix Package is what sent me personally over the edge of understanding on this issue. I'll tell you why.....
Link: http://www.pcgamer.c...fare-expansion/
This article from PC Gamer quotes Mr. Eckman as saying "Community Warfare will be delivered in three phases over the next six months."
I bought the Phoenix Package solely to benefit from the faction LP gains. Launch event and the above referenced article stated CW should be here by now. It's not. It's not even really delayed because they have not even actually started on it as far as what I have seen recently beyond a few doodles and ideas on paper. The blatant failure to communicate how far out CW really is, the disingenuous at best interview and communication to players is unacceptable. Thinking that CW was less than 6 months out was the influence that caused me to buy the Phoenix Package. Now I find out I have been intentionally misled and the company that sold me the product knowingly held back pertinent data regarding information that influenced what I purchased. I find that...how should I put it.....unprofessional (politely putting it).
Seriously, this behavior in other industries is direct cause for lawsuits.
Communication:Communication is limited, often vague, and sometimes incredibly disrespectful to the core community. Look at what ###, ###, and many other companies do. ### has CSM, quarterly reports, a great section on F&I's and constant dev blogs. ### has sufficiently detailed roadmaps and communication like this...which really impressed me.
https://forums.stati...-report.185306/
### took ownership of their problem even after fixing it. Look at the positive feedback from the community that had been hounding them. Happy customers, even if it took too long to most of them. We appreciate the honesty as gamers in a community.
What has MWO gotten? We get very limited information. We have scattered information across twitter, forums, and god knows where else. We get misleading information. Many of you will even remember that the forum posting founders and vocal posters were basically downright told they didn't matter last year when discussing upcoming features. Yeah I understand keeping the vocal minority in check, but that was the wrong way to handle your core fans who do, in fact, spend the most per capita on this game and actually care about it's success; these are also the guys that give you the detailed bug reports and suggest proper solutions to some issues. It could have at least been worded differently when communicating to them; but you essentially slapped em' in the face and said "see ya, and btw thanks for funding this thing!" if you don't like it.
Gameplay: While I do have criticisms, I honestly do not feel that I am technically qualified to understand the inner workings of the coding stuff. I would like to say that knockdown still hasn't been fixed, netcode is ok I guess, and SRM's still aren't fixed (hopefully tomorrow). Again, I don't know enough here to properly criticize so I will hold back, but these things should have been fixed long ago. What I do know is that we should have had integrated voice comms long ago and still no word on this? Any official reason why?
Meta: Many of us would love to play stock mechs only, many would love to play <insert variable> only. My OPINION is basically this.....the game is at such a state that not many people play it. New guys leave, old vets hibernate, etc. If they implemented this then the queue times would be forever long due to the exclusive options. Private matches are a step in the right direction I suppose. I honestly do not know how to fix the meta as all games suffer from it. I would love to hear your opinions on the matter.
In closing, I enjoyed the game and am trying to again. I do feel that some people who have invested money into this game have been misled; referencing my project phoenix explanation. I hope to engage in a respectful conversation with you all and I welcome PGI comments. I really want to play like I did in beta, but I don't know if that can happen again. I hope you guys working up there open up to the community and start being more honest with us on some issues. I also encourage pointing out any errors I have made; I will edit this post accordingly and log edits for all to see.
Edit: ### is a voluntary redaction in order to abide by forum rules.
Edit: My post was edited by Egomane (Legendary Mod) at 3:27 a.m. CST on 5/6/2014. No changes to my post were made. He only added the "general" tag. As a side not, we all should remember to thank these guys for the time they put in keeping these forums in order. It should also be noted that if they do something you do not like, message them respectfully asking why....maybe they have to regardless of their opinion and we should appreciate their dedication and professionalism. Thanks mods, your work may not be mentioned but it does not go unnoticed.
Edited by Doakes, 06 May 2014 - 01:40 AM.
