1453 R, on 16 August 2014 - 10:39 AM, said:
Then why haven't they?
Considering how incredibly massive a hot-button issue new maps are with The Community, how much some people are frothing-at-the-mouth MAD over the fact that we don't have seventy-eight different maps to drop on, and how much releasing even just a few new maps would sooth feathers that have been incredibly ruffled over the last couple months, why ain't they done it if it's something one neckbeard with a case of Mountain Dew can toss off in an afternoon?
You people are continually ascribing active malice to Piranha, which is dumb. They're not out to try and cheese you guys off. They're certainly not the best there is at their jobs, but I refuse to believe that it's a case of "We can't directly monetize this so cluck it we're not going to do it." There's no marketing department in the world stupid enough to do that, not when new maps helps to monetize the entire game. if you guys want to assume that it's Piranha being actively malicious and withholding resources because they can't slap dollars on them, be my guest. I'd rather assume that the company is telling some semblance of the truth when they say that for whatever reason, making new maps is a hefty resource sink.
Should they fix that issue? Absolutely. But I'm honestly as sick of seeing "Y U NO MAPS BR0" threads as I am of seeing "LURMS OP PRANA PLZ NRF" threads. You're never going to have more maps than you do 'Mechs. Stop asking for it.
Because there is NO profit in making maps ...
Period.
Maps by themselves do not attract or retain players ...
Maps do not generate a revenue stream ...
... AND ... they have other projects they can work on that WILL directly affect revenue. (mechs, cockpit items, camo,- all of which use the SAME artists as maps).
Why do you think it has taken PGI so long to even start on CW? ... because they haven't had a good monetization model or a way to objectively evaluate the impact of resources spent on CW on the bottom line.
Why are they starting to work on CW? Likely due to player retention numbers (or they have figured out a decent way to generate some income from it) ... the game probably has a decent uptake but relatively poor long term retention (other than folks who just love the franchise). CW and reasons to play the game OTHER than just dropping in a match and blowing up mechs are needed to drive long term retention. I can not count how many times this comment has been made during and after closed beta. So ... they are probably now working on features that may indirectly drive the bottom line by keeping players playing longer, more involved in the game and with something more than just K/D or W/L riding on each match. We'll see how that works out.
Personally, my opinion was that they could have spent a lot less on a revamp of the XP system making it more interesting and offering choices applicable to each variant of every mech ... that would also increase the individual interest of more casual players in each match.
Anyway - the community is made up of MANY different players and in my opinion long term retention would be driven by three initiatives that would attract and retain players over the longer term.
1) Community Warfare - for those who are a fan of the Battletech universe and want battles to mean something on a larger scale. Folks who fight for their faction and enjoy it.
2) Leader boards and competition - individual and grouped - maybe even by faction. They hold competitions from time to time but an ongoing leaderboard and ranking would appeal to a certain fraction of the player base.
3) Experience, mech variant skills, mech class skills, role warfare skills, module skills - the system they have now is boring after you master the first 3 variants. You have to have 3 mech variants with the same unlocks ... you can't customize the skills for each variant for different roles or capabilities. This appeals to individual, lone wolves or fans of Mechwarrior rather than Battletech ... those folks who want a reason to have to gather exp in several variants of the same mech in order to master it.
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