105 replies to this topic

[Roland]

That's actually soda, not beer.

[A banana in the tailpipe]

Roland, on 27 May 2014 - 08:52 PM, said:

That's actually soda, not beer.

Never claimed it was.

Edited by lockwoodx, 27 May 2014 - 08:59 PM.

[Alex Warden]

RedDragon, on 27 May 2014 - 03:05 PM, said:

What I don't understand:



Why didn't they just do the Kickstarter and produce the game as advertised in the trailer? The money would have been the same, they could even have included much higher tiers and we would have paid for it. So why do we have to live with this awkward F2P-model now?

they would have got way less money out of it as a retail singleplayer game, since the core BT fans were the only ones interested back then, plus the production costs would have been WAY higher, because they would have had to produce a real GAME, not a lobby shooter...

in short...profit

[Agent of Change]

Roland, on 27 May 2014 - 08:52 PM, said:

That's actually soda, not beer.

It's okay
he doesn't understand "jokes"

[A banana in the tailpipe]

Agent of Change, on 27 May 2014 - 09:22 PM, said:

It's okay
he doesn't understand "jokes"

Agent of Change walked into a bar and said "I've been stomped all night tell me a good joke to cheer me up", the Bartender looked back at him and said, "order something first". Agent of Change said "alright I'll have a warm milk". The Bartender gave him a funny look and handed him his order. When Agent of Change said crassly "So where's my joke?", the Bartender just smirked and said "No charge for you sonny, I don't serve underage pilots real jokes."

[RedDragon]

Alex Warden, on 27 May 2014 - 09:14 PM, said:

they would have got way less money out of it as a retail singleplayer game, since the core BT fans were the only ones interested back then, plus the production costs would have been WAY higher, because they would have had to produce a real GAME, not a lobby shooter...

in short...profit

I'm not so sure about this. Again, they could have provided tiers of backing with a lot more money (*cough* Gold mechs *Cough*). Basically, whatever they would have provided, I'm quite sure now we would have bought, from what I'm seeing here in MWO. In fact, we would have bought more than now because we were not so disillusioned at that point. Imagine what the Founders could have spent if there had not only been 120$ packages but ones for 500$ or even more than that.
Second, I'd guess the production cost of MWO is a lot higher now than it would have been for a retail game. After all, they need 250.000$ to make a simple map!
I'm quite sure if a competent team would have started a donation campaign for the game advertised in the trailer, they would have received more than enough money to make it.

[Chrithu]

Nice write up.

The only thing I disagree with is calling what was a pre-order with beta access campaign (which by the way is good practice with bigger F2P nowadays) a "crowdsource kickstarter". Especially when there was a publisher already on board and you don't know how much of the money actually went into the game and how much went back to already existent investors as revenue.

By the way the whole founders thing also never was marketed as a crowdfunding thing (probably because they knew full well that people expect a tad bit of influence and transparency on the development after such campaigns are succesful). I never read a word about "help us funding the game". It was always talking about "jump in early", "be the first", "get nice mechs" and that kind of things.

While there are similarities crowdfunding and pre-order are NOT the same thing.

And even if it was a crowdfund, if you loook at what others do with 6 mil and if we count in what they probably made from phoenix and clan mechs we might be talking 15 to 20 mil till now, one really has to wonder what they do with that money when they have been hiring for months now and apparantly no one wanted to jump aboard.

Ok we know one thing: Bryan once laid out how the production of a single mech from concept to coming ingame costs half a million alone. If you count the mechs and do the maths suddenly it doesn't sound far fetched and stupid at all when you say that too much resources flow into the looks of the game.

[Heffay]

Jason Parker, on 28 May 2014 - 12:17 AM, said:

Ok we know one thing: Bryan once laid out how the production of a single mech from concept to coming ingame costs half a million alone. If you count the mechs and do the maths suddenly it doesn't sound far fetched and stupid at all when you say that too much resources flow into the looks of the game.

The cost per mech was about $80k and maps were roughly $250k. There were 2 articles in PA reports that went into all the details involved in making each, and it was fantastic reading. I'll see if I can dig up the links.

[Chrithu]

Heffay, on 28 May 2014 - 12:24 AM, said:

The cost per mech was about $80k and maps were roughly $250k. There were 2 articles in PA reports that went into all the details involved in making each, and it was fantastic reading. I'll see if I can dig up the links.

Ok thanks. I have tried to find the video but couldn't dig it up. If I remember correctly the quote I refer to is from a Pax or E3 discussion or interview in 2013 or 2012 even. Long ago. It was about how in general games are costly to make and Bryan laid out how it takes half a year and $500k in total costs to make a single mech. I already thought back then that this sounds rather costly and can't be right.

[Joseph Mallan]

Bishop Steiner, on 27 May 2014 - 03:06 PM, said:

Ah, so same boat as me, except for the Packers thing.... GO NINERS!!!!!!!!!

Same for me... Can Detroit get a pro football team someday!!!

Agent of Change, on 27 May 2014 - 08:04 PM, said:

I'm not going to speculate, he can speak for himself if he chooses. But I don't expect him on a daily basis at this point.

This is a good point and deserves a Poll!

[Livewyr]

Agent of Change, on 27 May 2014 - 07:23 PM, said:

[/size]


Livewyr I respect you., I've played with you and against you over the course of my time with MWO, so know that what i say is not said with malice. I don't disagree that PGI has not completely ****** up totally everything they have touched. Credit where credit is due? OK.

MWO stands as the best feeling and prettiest Stompy robot game ever, it's not a small feat but that's as much as they get. Their follow through on that is what buggers them.

To address your points:

1. UI 2.0 is in fact garbage. It is an embarrassment that any professional UI designer would disown. Could it be fixed significantly by a couple easy changes sure, but that doesn't change the fact that what they released as complete was execrable. The ease of use is non-existant, it violates basic rules like centering the focus of attention and shuffles everything off to tiny edges. It's bad, and defending it doesn't help
2. Community warfare aka. the reason many people invested in this game, is MIA with no real completion ETA. Yeah Russ gave a date but when was the last time PGI hit any deadline they gave. It's not just disappointing it's insulting.
3. ECM.. well it's shite and I agree with your concise evaluation
4.Private matches... well mixed bag, certainly not a 100% thumbs up. two points of beef why pay for options on this? second why totally mishandle the MM when releasing it?
5. Mechs - another mixed bag, some good some bad but it's aesthetic so whatever..
6. Maps, thje ones they have are good but having the amount of maps they have after two years is just embarrassing and lets not forget that they thing we are all lobotomy victims with the $250k a map number. wow.

I could go on as well (matchmaking, ghost heat, 3pv, stupid meta, jump jets, pin point convergence, general weapon balance, ppc's, lrms, etc...) but the point is PGI has mismanaged, mishandled, and failed to communicate and almost every turn. They have burned a lot of good will and shown a lot of incompetence at the highest levels. The long and the short of it is that we as consumers not only have the right but the duty to try and dissuade people from funding MWO if it is clearly going in the wrong direction as we now feel it is. I'm not a doomsayer I am a fallen white knight... fallen because i saw the truth of it and i couldn't lie to myself anymore. I also seem to find myself in good company here at this point.

MWO is on a precipice, we as a community either force a change or we resign ourselves to the trash that PGI will make on their current trajectory.

Again this isn't personal, I just disagree with your premise and conclusion.

1: Agent... how could you? How DARE you disagree with me? You would risk this thread becoming a discussion of ideas and opinions? Have you no shame? No consideration?
(I'm not so petty as to auto-flame those who simply disagree with me.)

2a: U2.0, compared with most customization UI's I've seen isn't that far off. The home screen has your tabs up top to navigate to major components (Mechlab/Store), and access to things like inventory achievements, etc.. T
he U.I. has most things you need from what I can tell. (With the considerably important exception of a in-game public lobby- I don't understand why that isn't in there yet.) The placement could be cleaned up (inventory in mechlab, etc..) and they could use mouse-over in a lot of places in the mechlab to reduce clicking, and they could put the mech Cbill purchase in the mechlab along with the MC purchase. (My suspicious side suspects that it is that way specifically to sucker newbies into buying mechs with MC- but that's not a fault with the UI function capability, that's straight developer underhandedness.)

They have a decent menu layout (List on left and top, Mech in center, or on right) Only a few buttons need location changes that I can think of.

UI2.0 has a lot of work to go, rearranging/streamlining, and adding functions- I suspect the final UI will be somewhere in the 3 or 4.somethings, but the functions are there, especially compared to UI1/1.5.

From here, it needs suggestions, better ideas to work with what is here., not a failure label and call to scrap.

2b: Already said I was thorough disappointed with the lack of progress, so no disagreement there.
2c: *garbled message*
2d: Pay option for custom private matches doesn't bother me. IMO, they're not a part of the "core" game. (IMO, Core game is public battles for Cbills/Exp and CWars battles.) For it to be a Freemium game, I think some extra features need to be Premium. Though I certainly wouldn't cry if they made it completely free to do so, I'm ok with it not being free, especially since only 2 people out of the 24 need to have premium for it to work. (Or completely free if you get all 24 people together.)

2e: Aesthetics are generally a matter of personal opinion. (I just think some mechs look terrible in every iteration *cough* hunchback *cough* but Alex has done a good/excellent job with what he has.)

2f: Number of maps doesn't bother me greatly, we have 10 (not counting variations) which is about the middle area of map selections for multiplayer games (BF4 vanilla- 10, CoD-Ghosts-14, Titanfall vanilla- 14, MoH Warfighter- 7, Hawken- 9, etc..). I'm looking forward to more, but the map selection isn't far below the average for a vanilla game.


3: We definitely got handed a **** sandwich in the developer's inexperience and often unwillingness to listen to community concerns (ghost heat, ECM, jumpjets, ECM, MM, current meta, ECM, VTR, etc..), however, that doesn't change the fact that they're the only developer with this IP. If/when they go down, that's it for MW. It would be nice if there was another studio out there producing the brand, in order to force PGI to compete (all the best stuff has come from competition...just look at the CoD/BF4 rivalry) but since we don't have that.. we're up **** creek for that.

PGI folds = we lose. (At least I personally consider that a loss.. I love BT, I love it even more in real time.)
PGI goes wrong direction = we still lose, just less. (An Atlas is still an Atlas)
PGI figures it out (like they did with Private Lobbies) = we win.

I think my strongest disagreement with you, is that our "money" will change what they do drastically (aside from completely shutting them down). The blazing forums managed to alter consumables...and that's about it.
Seem's PGI cares more about IGP and their investors, than they do about micro-transactions from players.

Thus, I tell people: If you like what you see, and feel comfortable spending money on it.. do so. If not, don't do so, but don't try to tell people that they should, or should not spend spend their money on the game. (Just as I would balk at someone telling me I need to by premium to support the game, I balk at someone telling me I need to *not* spend money in order to achieve goals they want or think I want.)

[soapbox]
Be informed, try to change MWO where you see fit, (futile as it seems, I still do it) or if you find it hopeless, just leave.. there are plenty of other games out there to take your money.
[/soapbox]


[EDIT: Clarity- i was reading my own post and going "wha?" so I brought in BAP to counter the ECM and clean up the message a little.]

Edited by Livewyr, 28 May 2014 - 04:21 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

lockwoodx, on 27 May 2014 - 11:27 PM, said:

Agent of Change walked into a bar and said "I've been stomped all night tell me a good joke to cheer me up", the Bartender looked back at him and said, "order something first". Agent of Change said "alright I'll have a warm milk". The Bartender gave him a funny look and handed him his order. When Agent of Change said crassly "So where's my joke?", the Bartender just smirked and said "No charge for you sonny, I don't serve underage pilots real jokes."

and to reiterate

Agent of Change, on 27 May 2014 - 09:22 PM, said:

It's okay
he doesn't understand "jokes"

thanks for the proof

RedDragon, on 28 May 2014 - 12:02 AM, said:

I'm not so sure about this. Again, they could have provided tiers of backing with a lot more money (*cough* Gold mechs *Cough*). Basically, whatever they would have provided, I'm quite sure now we would have bought, from what I'm seeing here in MWO. In fact, we would have bought more than now because we were not so disillusioned at that point. Imagine what the Founders could have spent if there had not only been 120$ packages but ones for 500$ or even more than that.
Second, I'd guess the production cost of MWO is a lot higher now than it would have been for a retail game. After all, they need 250.000$ to make a simple map!
I'm quite sure if a competent team would have started a donation campaign for the game advertised in the trailer, they would have received more than enough money to make it.

http://www.ongamedes...o-much-to-make/

[Livewyr]

Bishop Steiner, on 28 May 2014 - 04:11 AM, said:

http://www.ongamedes...o-much-to-make/

That was a good read, and sadly, very eye opening. (And here I thought I knew everything..)

[Karl Streiger]

Livewyr, on 28 May 2014 - 04:28 AM, said:

That was a good read, and sadly, very eye opening. (And here I thought I knew everything..)

Not only for you. Oh i think the shadow grey on my armour turns out to shine lighter this moment.

Anyhow - i really ask myself - if and only if they had developed real Khan Mechs - 20x2 exclusive pattern. for each Mech - they may have need some lottery to sell those KhanMechs - for 500$ (even without the inclusion of the Warhawk package)

[SuperBroHeroFella]

This kinda sums up the relation of the MWO Community, the game and the devs.

[RedDragon]

Bishop Steiner, on 28 May 2014 - 04:11 AM, said:

http://www.ongamedes...o-much-to-make/

Quote

How long does it take to make this game of yours? That depends on the game you’re making. These days, it can take 2-3 years to make a AAA high-quality game, but the shortest time I’ve ever personally seen it done (factoring out pre-production) was about 9 months for Ratchet and Clank 3. Voila! It just cost you more than $4,250,000 to make all the things that go into your game!

Okay, I know that this is a bottom number and for a game like MW5 it would certainly be a lot more. But we achieved 4mio. with founder money alone, IIRC. Now add to this the fact that there could have been a lot higher tiers. I would even guess we could have doubled that money. And also add to this the fact that you'd have a game you could actually sell for money after it is done. All in all I think it would be a realistically doable enterprise.

[Zuesacoatl]

Iqfish, on 27 May 2014 - 03:29 PM, said:

Look at me, look at my post history.

Now look back at you.

Open your eyes man.

So what, I love this game, and I have been around longer than most, just check member since times. Though I have been called a WK, I am not, i just came into the game knowing that promises are made to be broken. I just wanted a fun game to pass time with others. I found it in MWO, the only real regret I have, is not getting the Legendary package.

[Bishop Steiner]

Livewyr, on 28 May 2014 - 04:28 AM, said:

That was a good read, and sadly, very eye opening. (And here I thought I knew everything..)

It's stuff like that is why I do not entirely excoriate the Devs, even after many failures.

I GET that cost, limited resources and such will cost overruns, missed deadlines, gaps in QA.
And if that is all it were, I would still wear my shiny white tabard.

What took the luster off my armor finally, was the complete and utter failures in the 3 things that they totally could have controlled for nearly ZERO cost: 1) Timely, open communication with the Community. (Whatever my misgivings are on Star Citizen, look at the wonders that has done for Chris, despite missing deadlines, themselves) 2) More community and Dev interaction in events and such to maintain excitement and enthusiasm levels (all of these will be related to the first point). Going radio silent for 2 months, then announcing your next big sale and expecting us all to cheer, is simply unrealistic. 3) Respect your community. Yes we are a cantankerous and contentious bunch. Yes, many of us are not near as smart as we think we are. An neither, dear Devs, are you. But ignoring your community mostly, telling them they are on an island (and that you either ignore our posts or get a good laugh from them) is not respecting it. Not all our ideas are great. But history has shown, neither are their's. In fact, looking back to the archives, most of our balance issues of today would have been avoided by heeding the voice of the community then, where many many people, calmly and rationally predicted the same issues we see. No, none of us are Nostradamus. But seeing things from many perspectives, and getting insight from your community on what they see, what they want, and what they don't want, is vital to healthy, long term growth.


Listening to Dev interviews, while they opine on what ails MWO (well, MWO, according to them, is robust and healthy,), or what hurdles it faces, at least, still too often paints them as out of touch with their community, and consistently "fixing" the wrong things in game, which has led to a completely stagnant Metagame for over a year, despite nerf after nerf to fix it. Despite multiple respected members compiling idea after idea, and forwarding them to the devs, we get treated to either half baked, no effort code nerfs (let's change the xhmtl doc by.01, that'll fix it for sure!) to overly convoluted, yet minimally viable ones (Ghost Heat).

And what is sad is we have a decent core game, if one strips off most of the overwrought nonsense added over the last year or so. Man, while not quite the same feel in all things, Stock Mech nights show how solid the base is, and where many things have indeed improved since Closed Beta (yet oddly the game is LESS fun now, in general). and if you meet the Devs and talk to them, they are all really nice guys, who really are enthusiastic for the game.

So it's that odd disconnect, IMO that makes it so hard to keep the rosy white knight image.

I want them to succeed. I like a lot of what they have done, and get they have huge hurdles to overcome. But I also see how often they are of their own making, and how they are often, unintentionally, their own worst enemies.

RedDragon, on 28 May 2014 - 04:43 AM, said:

Okay, I know that this is a bottom number and for a game like MW5 it would certainly be a lot more. But we achieved 4mio. with founder money alone, IIRC. Now add to this the fact that there could have been a lot higher tiers. I would even guess we could have doubled that money. And also add to this the fact that you'd have a game you could actually sell for money after it is done. All in all I think it would be a realistically doable enterprise.

it's possible, and I don't disagree, but you got to admit, there is a whole lot of conjecture in your point.

Zuesacoatl, on 28 May 2014 - 04:46 AM, said:

So what, I love this game, and I have been around longer than most, just check member since times. Though I have been called a WK, I am not, i just came into the game knowing that promises are made to be broken. I just wanted a fun game to pass time with others. I found it in MWO, the only real regret I have, is not getting the Legendary package.

Leg Pack was real nice. Had trouble justifying it, and went elite.... but chose poorly, and hated the Hunchback initially, so upgraded to Leg to get the other toys, lol.

And no, despite my misgivings, I do not regret the purchase (am not a big believer in buyer s remorse, tbh.

[DEN_Ninja]

Zuesacoatl, on 28 May 2014 - 04:46 AM, said:

So what, I love this game, and I have been around longer than most, just check member since times. Though I have been called a WK, I am not, i just came into the game knowing that promises are made to be broken. I just wanted a fun game to pass time with others. I found it in MWO, the only real regret I have, is not getting the Legendary package.

Haha! My 02 Nov 2011 buddy.

Man...we've been here a while.

[Karl Streiger]

Yep some of us will be loyal for 3 years - when CW should be implemented - lets see how many of us remain after