5 replies to this topic

[Shae Starfyre]

Greetings,
In the spirit of communication and social togetherness, I would like to propose that PGI/IGP provide a feed to their development cycle in the form of their backlog, rated by priority, with effort (estimates) provided.

I would be very curious, as a software engineer, what your cycle looks like.

I think this will go a long way in enlightening the community, realizing the extent of the backlog, the effort of development, and would also provide a goal oriented picture of MWO on a bi-weekly base (goes with patch cycle).

It would also reveal that our concerns are truly on the backlog, just with lower priority, that they are not forgotten or just words spoken to placate.

By seeing a snap-shot of these statistics will give us all a sense of belonging to the effort.

I, and I know a few others, understand that 2 week sprints cannot grant a huge amount of change, but, by presenting the effort each sprint to the tasks that come out of the patch notes, and the ongoing effort of longer projects, like CW, the time invested, will garner understanding and, perhaps, encourage support.

Although, this is typically an internal process, I understand, there is a certain amount of "Founder/Supporters" that believe themselves investors in this game, and could use a "prospectus" of said effort.

A road map is not nearly as granular, leading to hearsay and rumors.

It is wishful thinking, but an intriguing proposition to entertain, for me at least.

Edited by Egomane, 14 May 2014 - 08:14 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

PGI/IGP has a big problem, an image problem.

Their ability to communicate and support their community (forums) is pretty bad. They really need a strong community manager to help breed excitement for the game and help make the players feel like the negativity isn't warranted (and the negative posts will start to dry up).

The OPs idea would be one of many to help the community change directions from bitter and resentful to excited and optomistic.

A strong community manager and a plan to help excite and involve the community is crucial for them IMO. It might mean they have to hire some staff, but I have to imagine the additional profits from a more positive player base would easily off-set that (and some).

Overall, I think PGI/IGP has an image problem with the community that they can go a long way to resolve, but they need to put effort in that they, as of now, don't seemed to be motivated to do.

[Willard Phule]

MeiSooHaityu, on 14 May 2014 - 08:10 AM, said:

PGI/IGP has a big problem, an image problem.

Their ability to communicate and support their community (forums) is pretty bad. They really need a strong community manager to help breed excitement for the game and help make the players feel like the negativity isn't warranted (and the negative posts will start to dry up).

The OPs idea would be one of many to help the community change directions from bitter and resentful to excited and optomistic.

A strong community manager and a plan to help excite and involve the community is crucial for them IMO. It might mean they have to hire some staff, but I have to imagine the additional profits from a more positive player base would easily off-set that (and some).

Overall, I think PGI/IGP has an image problem with the community that they can go a long way to resolve, but they need to put effort in that they, as of now, don't seemed to be motivated to do.

Y'know man, I'd really like to be able to agree with this. I really would, but I can't. Maybe it's because I'm a generally pessimistic grumpy old man...maybe it's because I'm ex-military and have a very, very low tolerance for inefficiency, lack of communication, and being told straight to your face something you know isn't true. Maybe it's a combination of the two...but whatever it is, I simply cannot believe that by replacing a single individual with someone that may be slightly more competent will solve ALL of both PGI and IGP's image problems.

And, let's be honest here, it's not IGP's problem. IGP is the company one step higher on the food chain than PGI. This one is ALL PGI....lay the blame where it belongs, man.

I do agree that they could use not only a "strong community manager," but would benefit from a team of "customer service" type reps.....except, with PGI's track record with regard to hiring the right people for the right job, the potential for that to become a train wreck increases exponentially.

I really think the negativity and negative posts will dry up and go away when:

-This game becomes something more than just a combat simulator.....which, I believe, was a selling point that was used back prior and during Closed Beta to lure people into investing in the startup of this game. And that was what, 2 years ago? That's an AWFUL long time to not follow up on something and expect those that invested in you to just quietly trust you.

-Weapons balancing gets fixed. And I don't mean this whole nerfbat that some drooling simpleton at PGI does with his dartboard while touching himself and listening to Teletubbies on his iPhone. I mean seriously taking a look at the ranges, rate of fire, heat generation...the whole thing. It SHOULD have been a scream for help when they realized they needed to double the armor and interior structure of every mech in the game just to make it playable. Then they add "Ghost Heat" as a "temporary solution" over a year ago? Do these people simply NOT play their game at all?

-The matchmaker. The number 1 complaint I see in every forum I participate in has to do with the Public Queue and the Matchmaker. Most of the time they're pretty much random complaints about Elo level, poptarts, premades, etc. But, every once in a while, you'll run across a post where people are putting forth some REALLY good suggestions on how to fix it or make it better....which is, ultimately, ignored by PGI.

Why is that? Why does PGI ignore anything but posts that toot their horns and pat them on the back for being innovative and progressive? It might be because their marketing department is doing an awesome job of keeping them all in paychecks....because they've managed to convince our community that it's still OK to spend $15 a month to keep enough premium time going. Look what World of Warcraft did with 15 bucks a month.

It could be that they really don't care what we think. They know they've got a monopoly here. Noone else is even allowed to develop a MechWarrior title as long as they hold the License, and they know it. The sad part about that is, they're guarding it so very jealously.....and they're simply wasting the best resource they've got. The community.

How many games can you name that started off encouraging their community to come up with custom maps, custom skins and such during their Beta phases that went on to bigger, better things......often keeping the franchise alive through different versions of the game? Mechwarrior was one...I remember making maps in MW3. Counter Strike and Team Fortress come to mind....along with another dozen or so Half Life/Half Life2 mods.

Nope, I think this thing will crawl along to a long, drawn out, painful death.....and after it's all said and done, they'll sell the License to someone else, then we'll see what happens.

[Green Mamba]

Sounds Like They Need a WINGMANS' HANGAR ...I think they missed their chance on that Along time ago

[Almond Brown]

Naw, let them work on the game. Investors get financial returns (if lucky), what we want is Patches and CW.

P.S. Backlogs suck. Reading about a backlog would also likely suck.

Edited by Almond Brown, 14 May 2014 - 11:21 AM.

[ShadowWolf Kell]

When I playing BattleStar Galactica Online, they were in a similar situation MWO is in now. Balancing existing systems. Like MWO, they were too focused on putting out more and more things to buy with real money, rather than addressing the problem. It was absurd that in my Viper Mk7, I could pretty much slaughter any capital ship with ease by sticking in their blind spot. If I used premium ammo on top of it, they didn't even get a chance to jump out. Get a group of us together coordinated together and it was overkill. The reason it was possible was because flak cannons were worthless, missiles were easily evaded and the blind spots were massive.

Anyway not too long ago I logged in for giggles to see what was new. In the 2 years since I last played, they've added in 1 new system and 1 carrier, both of which had actually come out shortly after I originally stopped playing. To be fair, there were a lot of balancing changes to weapons, ammo, armor and other modules but actual content was pretty nonexistant as were new ships.

Additionally, the server I was on Caprica, was a ghost town compared to being one of the most populated servers. I ran around in my Raptor with DRADIS range pods (all level 10) loaded and found a whopping 8 players total (that includes the newbie areas for both sides.)

What killed BSGO? Too little, too late. It's still lingering on, but it seems everyone had to relocate to a single server and the only ones still playing are the ones who invested way too much money into the game to want to call it quits. Solvent doesn't mean successful.

I really don't want to see MWO go out the same way. Unfortunately human history is filled with folks who never learn from past mistakes, partly because they think they can beat the odds and "this time it will be different!"