179 replies to this topic

[Sephlock]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 16 July 2014 - 03:59 PM, said:

Yes, but PGI did give 30 days of premium time to the 2 people who made the first Clan vs Inner Sphere kills after the invasion started. Which is $12.50.

So... that's pretty generous. It's like the price of a Big Mac meal at McDonalds in Norway. Well, not quite that much, but almost.

I can see why they they made a public announcement on the forums about it.

Wow, the economic downturn hit you guys HARD!

Mine sympatier!

[Tristan Winter]

Sephlock, on 16 July 2014 - 04:18 PM, said:

Wow, the economic downturn hit you guys HARD!
Mine sympatier!

Sandpit, on 16 July 2014 - 04:09 PM, said:

the problem with that?
that's .000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of your population
it's just like the "kill a dev for a reward" events. You're excluding 90+% of your community that can't participate and earn anything. That also wasn't a "we messed up, we're sorry, take this" type reward either. Honestly, I'd be content with a few apologies for some of the trolling that members of the PGI team have done to customers and daily updates on where CW is. (Don't hand me the "do you want them to work on it or post about it?" excuse either. It takes 5 minutes to put a post together, 10 minutes for a half-assed one, and 20-30 for a decent info filled post) Also, don't try the "hey, they only have so many workhours in the day" excuse either. If I miss a deadline at work do you think I don't have to work late to correct it even if it wasn't my fault?

You make a good argument, but I should say I was being sarcastic to begin with.

Imagine if a company like Blizzard made a big deal about giving someone a $12.50 award. People would die laughing.

And before anyone says "Yeah, but Blizzard can afford it", let me just repeat Roland's point: even if they gave those two people gold mechs, 100,000 MC and a trillion C-bills, it would still cost PGI essentially nothing.

[Sandpit]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 16 July 2014 - 04:23 PM, said:

You make a good argument, but I should say I was being sarcastic to begin with.

Imagine if a company like Blizzard made a big deal about giving someone a $12.50 award. People would die laughing.

And before anyone says "Yeah, but Blizzard can afford it", let me just repeat Roland's point: even if they gave those two people gold mechs, 100,000 MC and a trillion C-bills, it would still cost PGI essentially nothing.

exactly
I'm tired of the whole "poor small PGI" excuses. They've had enough time and made enough money to expand their company to keep up with growth. If they're not reinvesting the money the earn from their customers wisely to accomplish that, that's on them not us and it's not a valid excuse.

It was a legitimate reason
2 years ago
and millions of dollars ago

[Kyrie]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 16 July 2014 - 04:23 PM, said:

You make a good argument, but I should say I was being sarcastic to begin with.

Imagine if a company like Blizzard made a big deal about giving someone a $12.50 award. People would die laughing.

And before anyone says "Yeah, but Blizzard can afford it", let me just repeat Roland's point: even if they gave those two people gold mechs, 100,000 MC and a trillion C-bills, it would still cost PGI essentially nothing.

Developer behavior as to giving away virtual items does, IMHO, have a real impact on the perceived value of said virtual items (most particularly virtual currencies). While giving away massive amounts to only two people might have a negligible impact, making a habit of doing lots of large give-aways could easily devalue the virtual items in question.

It is, in part, what I speculate to be one of the reasons it took PGI such a long time to start offering "good" deals (i.e., 50% savings on some items, bundles, etc).

[Sandpit]

Kyrie, on 16 July 2014 - 04:29 PM, said:

Developer behavior as to giving away virtual items does, IMHO, have a real impact on the perceived value of said virtual items (most particularly virtual currencies). While giving away massive amounts to only two people might have a negligible impact, making a habit of doing lots of large give-aways could easily devalue the virtual items in question.

It is, in part, what I speculate to be one of the reasons it took PGI such a long time to start offering "good" deals (i.e., 50% savings on some items, bundles, etc).

the bundles and such were waiting for the new UI. They couldn't do bundles and such with the previous UI.

[Kyrie]

Sandpit, on 16 July 2014 - 04:34 PM, said:

the bundles and such were waiting for the new UI. They couldn't do bundles and such with the previous UI.

Offering packages via the website was implemented long before the UI, they had the capacity to offer anything they wanted through the website.

[Tristan Winter]

Kyrie, on 16 July 2014 - 04:29 PM, said:

Developer behavior as to giving away virtual items does, IMHO, have a real impact on the perceived value of said virtual items (most particularly virtual currencies). While giving away massive amounts to only two people might have a negligible impact, making a habit of doing lots of large give-aways could easily devalue the virtual items in question.
It is, in part, what I speculate to be one of the reasons it took PGI such a long time to start offering "good" deals (i.e., 50% savings on some items, bundles, etc).

I see what you're saying, but I just think it's a terrible argument.

I remember the first tournaments PGI had, the winners got stuff like... cockpit items, or token rewards for a few dollars worth. It was just ridiculous. It doesn't maintain a perception of MWO items as valuable, it just makes PGI look cheap and miserly.

[Sandpit]

Kyrie, on 16 July 2014 - 04:36 PM, said:

Offering packages via the website was implemented long before the UI, they had the capacity to offer anything they wanted through the website.

they said (somewhere and no please don't ask for a citation, it would be archived somewhere) that they were waiting on it though. Now whether that's true or not depends on how much of a conspiracy theorist you are. No, they didn't directly say we can't, it was more like "Now we can offer you this" as part of the whole "you'll love UI2.0" stuff. It was one of the features it was touted as allowing now

[Vassago Rain]

Sandpit, on 16 July 2014 - 04:39 PM, said:

they said (somewhere and no please don't ask for a citation, it would be archived somewhere) that they were waiting on it though. Now whether that's true or not depends on how much of a conspiracy theorist you are. No, they didn't directly say we can't, it was more like "Now we can offer you this" as part of the whole "you'll love UI2.0" stuff. It was one of the features it was touted as allowing now

They couldn't sell things through the in-game UI. There was never anything preventing them from taking your money through the website, and then inject content on an hourly basis as needed. Needs to an end in the name of profit, and all that.

Which is how they operated until UI 2.0 Jesus patch. So now you can buy a MASTERY PACK: MEDIUM EDITION through the mechlab, or purchase CLAN IRONCLAD PACKAGE using the old website means.

[Sandpit]

Vassago Rain, on 16 July 2014 - 04:43 PM, said:

They couldn't sell things through the in-game UI. There was never anything preventing them from taking your money through the website, and then inject content on an hourly basis as needed. Needs to an end in the name of profit, and all that.

Which is how they operated until UI 2.0 Jesus patch. So now you can buy a MASTERY PACK: MEDIUM EDITION through the mechlab, or purchase CLAN IRONCLAD PACKAGE using the old website means.

I still dont' understand why clans are "injected" with the new UI

[AntiCitizenJuan]

It's too god damned bad that those of us who have been here since Open Beta and even more so Closed Beta, arent going to be getting anything for our loyalty. Thats the biggest kicker of all. We slogged through some ****** times in this game, and we arent rewarded with anything.

Thats a god damned shame.

We SHOULD get some Loyalty points retroactively for being Loyal to this game for so long.

Edited by AntiCitizenJuan, 16 July 2014 - 04:50 PM.

[WVAnonymous]

I am unclear on the nature of loyalty points, and IS vs. Clan.

Am I expected to hang a Steiner Loyalty medallion in my Clan Wolf War Hawk, and fight for Steiner causes?

[Sandpit]

AntiCitizenJuan, on 16 July 2014 - 04:49 PM, said:

It's too god damned bad that those of us who have been here since Open Beta and even more so Closed Beta, arent going to be getting anything for our loyalty. Thats the biggest kicker of all. We slogged through some ****** times in this game, and we arent rewarded with anything.

Thats a god damned shame.

We SHOULD get some Loyalty points retroactively for being Loyal to this game for so long.

eh, I'm torn

I don't think anyone is "entitled" to anything and PGI (in the past 6 months or so) has been pretty good about giving stuff away but it just "feels" like they're doing it out of obligation. It really feels like PGI is very... standoffish? of their community or at least portions of it. It would be nice if they would just act like they appreciate ALL of their customers and stop with the trolling and "cute" comments, buckle down, ramp up production, and stop with this whole
"You guys should be grateful we made the game since it was dead and nobody wanted to touch the IP"
(that's exactly what Russ has said btw)
and actually be grateful that there's a base of customers willing to spend money on their product and help them pay their bills.

True, it's a symbiotic relationship. Those who enjoy Btech should appreciate that now we've got a new Btech game to play. PGI needs to come down to reality a bit though and understand that customers should never be "grateful" that a company decided to make a for profit business venture. It's not like PGI is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.

That mentality is really at the basis of a lot of the complaints. Had they not taken that type of mentality towards their customers, you'd see a LOT less threads like this one.

[Vassago Rain]

WVAnonymous, on 16 July 2014 - 04:54 PM, said:

I am unclear on the nature of loyalty points, and IS vs. Clan.

Am I expected to hang a Steiner Loyalty medallion in my Clan Wolf War Hawk, and fight for Steiner causes?

It's a fancy name for 'raid gear.'

Russ initially described it as buying epics. So you'd grind out 20,000 steiner points, exchange them for the dual leech +9 AC20.



Now when you've bought your horde unique troll gear, you could theoretically set your loyalty to davions and work on their magical AC ammo. It was also pushed as a sort of gear level list, so you'd need loyalty with everybody to join the wolf's dragoons and buy stones of jordan.

[Sandpit]

Vassago Rain, on 16 July 2014 - 04:58 PM, said:

It's a fancy name for 'raid gear.'

Russ initially described it as buying epics. So you'd grind out 20,000 steiner points, exchange them for the dual leech +9 AC20.



Now when you've bought your horde unique troll gear, you could theoretically set your loyalty to davions and work on their magical AC ammo. It was also pushed as a sort of gear level list, so you'd need loyalty with everybody to join the wolf's dragoons and buy stones of jordan.

uhm I've never ever seen that or heard it described that way

It was stated to be a way to purchase a faction's mechs at a cheaper prices.

[Vassago Rain]

Sandpit, on 16 July 2014 - 05:02 PM, said:

uhm I've never ever seen that or heard it described that way

It was stated to be a way to purchase a faction's mechs at a cheaper prices.

Then you were not paying attention.

They specifically talked about how you'd need loyalty in every faction to be elite uber pr0 and have wolf's dragoons bonuses.

[Sandpit]

Vassago Rain, on 16 July 2014 - 05:04 PM, said:

Then you were not paying attention.

They specifically talked about how you'd need loyalty in every faction to be elite uber pr0 and have wolf's dragoons bonuses.

that's just to join WD, not all the other stuff you mentioned

[Igorius]

No retroactive Loyalty Points for those who have religiously used their Phoenix (P) variants?

I must say, I'm disappointed. Not surprised, but disappointed nonetheless.

[Malleus011]

For my part, I appreciate Bryan showing up and telling us anything about the Phoenix Loyalty points.

That said, I would appreciate being thrown a bone. I've got about 36 hours in (P) variants ... I'd rather not be told a year later that that counts for nothing.

[Sandpit]

Malleus011, on 16 July 2014 - 07:27 PM, said:

For my part, I appreciate Bryan showing up and telling us anything about the Phoenix Loyalty points.

That said, I would appreciate being thrown a bone. I've got about 36 hours in (P) variants ... I'd rather not be told a year later that that counts for nothing.

well it doesn't count for "nothing" but yes, the delays are frustrating. The clans got every single thing they paid for working form day one. A year later and we're still waiting on stuff like this for our PP purchases