247 replies to this topic

[Sparks Murphey]

Sandpit, on 04 September 2014 - 04:03 PM, said:

uhm ok

Some people are apparently impenetrable to sarcasm. PGI, plz nerf.

[IllCaesar]

Sparks Murphey, on 04 September 2014 - 02:48 PM, said:

Since Garth left

Not trying to derail, but when did this happen? It must've been when I was away from the game.

[Sparks Murphey]

MarsAtlas, on 04 September 2014 - 06:30 PM, said:

Not trying to derail, but when did this happen? It must've been when I was away from the game.

He went quiet after new year, before Russ admitted in Feb that he was gone. The post on MWOmercs is gone, but it's referenced here:
http://www.mechspecs...hp?topic=5707.0

A snippet from Russ:

Quote

There were several people asking after Garth since they hadn't heard from him lately so I decided it would be best to create a small post to answer those questions.

Unfortunately Garth is no longer employed at PGI, it was simply a matter of his skill set no longer matching the evolving needs of the product and studio. This is obviously a very common occurrence in ones career and perhaps especially in the gaming industry. Usually these matters don't garner too much attention but of course Garth was a known entity for the MWO community and therefore requires a special mention.

We all really enjoyed working with Garth and were sad to see it come to an end, these partings are always the hardest part about running a business.

We wish him the best.

Russ

Niko Snow also left IGP about the same time. We then had a few months without anyone in the community management role before Niko was announced as the new community manager (which I'm having trouble tracking down a reference for, but no later than April 2nd from his profile).

[Hex Pallett]

Wait, isn't IGP basically PGI?

[slide]

IGP's Jessica, a forum admin left IGP a few months ago as well (March I think). There was an announcement on her MWT profile page about it but nothing else, she injected a heap of CBills into everyone account on her departure. Of coarse we can't check on it now.

With Niko moving to MWO I think the only other IGP rep left on MWT was Reppu but no one has heard form him for a couple of months despite moderators trying to get in touch with him directly for weeks.

Total silence does not help your cause IGP.

No Reps.
No Developer
No Website (Temporarily, lol)

That is a good recipe for disaster.

[Sandpit]

Tirick Fire, on 04 September 2014 - 04:22 PM, said:

Maddening, I bought into the Founders' back in April, when they were still selling the 'idea' that there was an active developer. They shut the site down not 2 days after it was discovered that the 'active' development company had been fired. In December.

Seems like a fair case for fraud, if the site never returns and development does not continue. I will give it another few days, then probably start making noise for a refund, not that I expect one, but it doesn't hurt to try.

there's no "doubt" about that, if you paid and it's now shut down, you are entitled to a refund

Helmstif, on 04 September 2014 - 07:05 PM, said:

Wait, isn't IGP basically PGI?

they definitely share a lot of people.

Truth is, we don't really know. It seems that way at times, but as far as proof? Nothing, pure speculation

[Sparks Murphey]

Helmstif, on 04 September 2014 - 07:05 PM, said:

Wait, isn't IGP basically PGI?

No. PGI (Piranha Games Inc) are the developer, who have also developed parts of Duke Nukem Forever (published by 2K) and Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 (published by EA), while IGP (Infinite Game Publishing) are the publisher, who are also publishing Sins of a Dark Age (developed by Ironclad Games) and, of course, MechWarrior Tactics (developed by who knows who). Electronic Arts are publishers for both Battlefield 4 (developed by DICE) and SimCity (Maxis), and while I hold Maxis and Electronic Arts responsible for the train wreck that was the latest SimCity game, I don't expect DICE to fix it.

The developers produce the media, the publisher then gets that game to make money and ensure the developers get paid. PGI hunted for some time after their "MechWarrior 5" teaser video to find a publisher (which included Microsoft, who are still getting paid because they hold the IP license but aren't actually doing any publishing work) before IGP finally agreed to do it. As part of the deal between IGP and Microsoft allowing IGP to publish MechWarrior games, IGP also brought in another developer (originally Roadhouse Interactive and ACRONYM Games, later Blue Lizard) to develop MechWarrior Tactics.

To put it another way, let's compare to the book world. Developers are like authors, while publishers are... well, publishers. So, Loren Coleman (PGI) really wants to write a new book called "MechWarrior 5", but can't find anyone interested in publishing it. He's got some ideas and a good first draft, but nothing else yet, and since FASA aren't publishing anymore, he can't turn to them. Eventually, Roc Books (IGP) says, "Sure, Loren, we'll publish your book. But we want it to be an eBook that everyone can play read at once. We'll call it "MechWarrior Online". Loren Coleman agrees, since heck, at least that way he gets things published, and hopefully he can demonstrate that people are still interested in reading BattleTech books.

Now that Roc have secured permissions from Harmony Gold (hey, who else is going to be our analogy to Microsoft here, except someone who sits on IP and doesn't do anything with it?) to make more BattleTech books, they also get Michael Stackpole (Roadhouse Interactive) to write another BattleTech novel called "MechWarrior Tactics" while they're at it, because hey, they've got the licence, and if either novel is successful, Roc recoup some of the cost of the license. That means they aren't just relying on Coleman's book to pay for their deal with Harmony Gold. Plus, the success of one might flow on to the other. The two books, though both set in the BattleTech universe, have quite different writing styles: Coleman is going for gritty realism, while Stackpole is going more over the top drama.

While Loren Coleman's book is slow to get going, even after he starts letting people pay money to read the book even as he's writing it, Michael Stackpole's book just doesn't make sense. Eventually, Roc decide it was a terrible idea to bring Stackpole in to do this, so ask him to leave. Since it was their idea to start with, and they own the IP rights, they get to keep the book as it is, but ask Timothy Zahn (Blue Lizard) to come in and finish off what Stackpole was working on. Zahn turns out to not be much good at BattleTech novels either, so in December of 2013, he's quietly let go as well. Roc continue to sell the half-completed bits of Stackpole/Zahn's novel, pretending that it's still being written.

Meanwhile, Coleman has finally finished writing the introduction to his story and looks like it might actually be just about ready to start on some actual action, assuming that everyone hasn't stopped reading from boredom at the lengthy, lengthy walls of text that make up the intro. But, after Roc insist that he and Ghost-Timothy-Zahn move to another city to do their writing, fans realise that Zahn isn't actually there, since he's not answering his phone, and in fact, has anyone seen Zahn recently at all? Since Coleman's book is still going, and they can still read it, they conclude that this is Coleman's fault, when it's actually Roc's fault. The funds generated by selling Coleman's half-written book are certainly supporting both Coleman and Roc, which means at least some of the Roc money is supporting the mess that is Stackpole/Zahn's book, but Coleman has no creative control over what happens with that book. Sure, there are definitely some problems with what Coleman has written, but the failure of Stackpole/Zahn's book doesn't contribute to that.

Edit from the Future: The post above was written a few days before we found out that PGI and IGP have gone their separate ways, so perhaps it should end with Coleman deciding that Roc's publishing abilities are somewhat poor, buying out the rights to the book he's writing, and deciding to self-publish both his MechWarrior Online book (which he's vaguely considering a single-reader spin-off for) and a completely new book since he's always wanted to try his hand at writing spaceship sci-fi.

Edited by Sparks Murphey, 11 September 2014 - 12:46 AM.

[Hex Pallett]

LOL thanks for the lecture but dude, I know the dynamics between devs and publishers. I guess what I was trying to say was that since IGP and PGI are technically two legal identities but shares a lot of people, hypothetically they could rather easily allocate resource from PGI to whoever developing MWT, right?

I'm gonna make another post about this. A MWT remake.

[Heffay]

Helmstif, on 05 September 2014 - 07:22 AM, said:

LOL thanks for the lecture but dude, I know the dynamics between devs and publishers. I guess what I was trying to say was that since IGP and PGI are technically two legal identities but shares a lot of people, hypothetically they could rather easily allocate resource from PGI to whoever developing MWT, right?

I'm gonna make another post about this. A MWT remake.

PGI and IGP don't really share people. IGP provides some of the customer support for MWO. The only person that really has combined PGI and IGP experience is Niko, because he went from IGP to PGI. If they were technically sharing people, there would be no need to make the transition and move him to Vancouver. He could just be the community manager for MWO as an IGP person.

They are distinct and separate companies who are working on a project together. Sparks' rundown above is really a spot on perfect comparison. IGP can't dictate that PGI work on MWT. IGP can offer the job to them, but they are under no obligation to accept it. And it probably wouldn't make sense for them to do so anyway, as it would directly compete with their existing work in both time and revenue. It would only make sense for PGI to pick up MWT if there was IP or tech that they would want to incorporate into MWO.

Heck, each of the companies involved in these ventures is replaceable as well (limited to the contracts they signed). In theory, if IGP goes out of business that doesn't mean the end of MWO. Instead they would sell their position as the publisher to someone else in order to cash out. PGI would most likely be kept on as the developer with a fresh infusion of cash from the new publisher. If PGI went out of business, all the code/resources they have in MWO could be sold to a new developer as well. It's clear that there is money in MWO regardless, so it will continue on even if the current people around it disappear.

My guess is that PGI is on much more stable ground than IGP, so if things were to go south getting a new publisher would be the most likely scenario. Heck, it wouldn't surprise me to see Microsoft step into that role in that case. Skip the middle man, collect paychecks, do not pass go!

[DragonOTM]

Sandpit, on 04 September 2014 - 02:08 PM, said:

uhm hate to break it to you but MWO and PGI have nothing to do with the development of MWT other than IGP being the publisher for both games. There was a completely different dev company for MWT

Same thing happened with Star Trek Online, 3 months later a new dev company, brought everything back right down to the last credit. So I will give it 3 months, if nothing is brought back, or reimbursed, the better business bureau and ecommerce will shut them down with enough complaints. With my brother connected to 13 million people on linkedin, it wont be hard to do (including people like chris roberts and sid meier)
Things would get very nasty over a few dollars but companies like EA should be shut down entirely and I hope disney is the one to do them in!
Care about your customers because repeat business will be your best business

[Sandpit]

DragonOTM, on 05 September 2014 - 04:02 PM, said:

Same thing happened with Star Trek Online, 3 months later a new dev company, brought everything back right down to the last credit. So I will give it 3 months, if nothing is brought back, or reimbursed, the better business bureau and ecommerce will shut them down with enough complaints. With my brother connected to 13 million people on linkedin, it wont be hard to do (including people like chris roberts and sid meier)
Things would get very nasty over a few dollars but companies like EA should be shut down entirely and I hope disney is the one to do them in!
Care about your customers because repeat business will be your best business

MWT has apparently been without a dev for nearly a year now. Bit longer than 3 months

[Carlos Vinson]

Sandpit, on 03 September 2014 - 03:24 PM, said:

http://megamek.info/
http://www.mekwars.org/

there you go, complete with CW, economy, hundreds of planets, etc.

Thank You! Give yourself an ATTABOY!

[Ryvucz]

MWT website mentions hardware change, maybe they decided to get someone else to work on a hard drive version instead of browser.

slide, on 04 September 2014 - 07:27 PM, said:

IGP's Jessica, a forum admin left IGP a few months ago as well (March I think). There was an announcement on her MWT profile page about it but nothing else, she injected a heap of CBills into everyone account on her departure. Of coarse we can't check on it now.

With Niko moving to MWO I think the only other IGP rep left on MWT was Reppu but no one has heard form him for a couple of months despite moderators trying to get in touch with him directly for weeks.

Total silence does not help your cause IGP.

No Reps.
No Developer
No Website (Temporarily, lol)

That is a good recipe for disaster.

I've heard from Reppu, he wanted to keep his sanity and move away from a front line customer service position (can you blame him with this community?)

[slide]

Cant blame him at all. But it is not a good sign when all the customer service people jump ship on a product.

Who does that leave then?

[Robdillard]

Given that the MWT service is down entirely with only a passing word on the outage stating it was no longer in development. I have submitted for a refund with IGPs website in the other section(my odds of an email response from a shutdown website, I dont see as being very high). I urge others to do the same and keep IGP accountable, this should get offical word on the website at minimum.

In the long term I expect a refund, I will continue to send emails to both locations,I sent an email to mwtatics email but I think the best bet is still with IGP. I really liked the idea for the game, but If they dare try to resurrect it again. I will be using the launch or no pay in from any further projects from IGP and company.

[C E Dwyer]

LauLiao, on 27 August 2014 - 03:50 PM, said:

So anyone else here in the MWT Beta? I just went to check on the progress over there and got a big "Website is down for maintanence, check back in 72 hours" message. Anyone know how long this has been up, or if I've just witnessed the death knell of that game?

Ten days since you post and its still check back in 72 hours

I think this typifies why spending money on pre orders or kick starters for computer games while in closed beta is very dumb

[Zolaz]

I got a refund from Mech Warrior Tactics when I got a refund from my Clan Package. Im real glad I did. Seems strange for IGP to start up another game with a Founder's Program if Tactics went down.

[Jabilo]

Not a good situation. I feel for people who paid into the game.

[Roland]

MWT is still accepting "Founders" applications, literally years after the game started... They have basically never gotten out of beta. It's a total crapfest.

[TOGSolid]

I am so glad I was able to question the devs at PAX Prime a couple years back. They were so easily shaken by questions about how their monetization scheme was going to avoid dilution problems that it threw up all the red flags ever for me. Not a single cent spent on what should be the easiest game in the world to make and man oh man am I glad about that.

Edited by TOGSolid, 06 September 2014 - 06:16 PM.