244 replies to this topic

[Thirdstar]

I see the golds are still still parroting the fiction that PGI and IGP are two wholy seperate entities who totally don't share their entire leadership and support staff.

No they just met in a dark alley and have been working together since. Pay no attention to the unannouced shuttering of Mechwarrior Tactics and its 72 hour countdown to great things and the desperation with which the Sins of A Dark Age devs fled the loving embrace of PGI/IGP.

Jarhead Games? Who are they? Never heard of them either.

Edited by Thirdstar, 06 September 2014 - 03:03 AM.

[Sarlic]

MischiefSC, on 06 September 2014 - 01:54 AM, said:

There are times I can be pretty skeptical about the human race but, seriously, you guys are enough to make someone look up at the skies, see a massive asteroid blotting out the sun as it prepares to blast the Earth back to molten debris and just say 'oh thank god.'

If PGI wants to make another game.... then so what? Either be interested or don't. I don't care if they spend the money that MW:O generates on hookers and blow or fleshing out their MLP collectables. If you don't want to spend money on something.... don't spend money on it. Where that money goes isn't your business.

As to this idea that if PGI gets involved in another game MW:O will collapse....

Well, reading this thread actually makes me a tad excited at the idea if only to scatter some of the bitter, petulant, clearly very frustrated at life people here out into the real world. Go for a walk, get some air. I saw some guy above threatening to stalk PGI employees because he's.... what, upset at how they spend their money?

I'm at a loss. Really. Some of you guys are so depressing you make EAs whole Sims 4 debacle look like a grade school spat. Do you realize how silly this is, to the point where it stops getting silly and edges into both depressing and a bit alarming?

I'll play MW:O while it's fun. It's a computer game. It's made by people who make computer games. They are, apparently, making another one. Great! Hope they have fun. If it looks good I'll play it. Having multiple projects under the same roof is always a good idea; it creates cross pollination and can help keep a single-focus project group from getting too 'inbred'.

I am not at MW:O investing in the cure for cancer or building a better future for human civilization. I'm playing big stompy robots and shooting lasers and missiles and BFGs at stuff to blow it up. If there is anyone out there who is so obsessed or wrought up over this that it's making them actually legitimately angry....

Please. Go take a break. Watch kitten videos. Talk to actual human beings in person. There's so much in this thread that just ain't healthy. PGI is making another game. Great! Always room for more games I actually have more than one on my computer. Hopefully all you do too. A lot of this is just.... absurd. Wonky, unhealthy level absurd.

From the website:

Quote

MechWarrior Online, an online free-to-play giant robot combat game. MechWarrior Online's incredibly successful Founder's Program proved that we can work directly with our backers to help build a game for the community.

It seems you are serious? Good, another goes on my ignore list.

Let's go back a bit in history [as far i can remember]

February 2012,
http://mwomercs.com/...le-warfare-cont
Role warfare content. IGP / PGI totally scrapped it.

June, 19th, 2012
The release of the Founders program. PGI raised more then 5 milion of funds. (www.gamasutra.com/view/news/179499/MechWarrior_Onlines_unconventional_crowdfunding_pays_off.php#.UI6ow0Mj5mp)

October 29, 2012
Open beta. Alot of original backers said the game was not ready for it. Yet PGI released it.

Quote

Community warfare was originally stated to be due out within 90 days of open beta (i.e. by January 2013).[7] Subsequently the release date for this feature was stated by the creative director of Mechwarrior Online to be all 3 phases inclusive by launch.[8]

Since the official launch in September 2013 which did not include either the updated inferface or long awaited Community Warfare, a new roadmap has been announced in December 2013 stating a goal of getting Community Warfare implemented by fall of 2014,[9] stating a worst case delivery date of October–November 2014. These goalposts were subsequently moved by Bullock to December 21, 2014 during a twitter AMA (Ask Me Anything) Q&A session,[10] while the scope of feature delivery was also reduced from 'Complete' to 'Version 1'.

August 22nd 2013
Huge shitstorm about 3POV. No one asked for that, probaly forgot that - right?
http://mwomercs.com/...3rd-person-why/
http://mwomercs.com/...ology-feedback/
http://themittani.co...ure-communicate

January, 2013
MWT(MWO Tactics) MechWarrior Tactics closed beta launches, Founder packages detailed. The game did not go in closed beta until the end of August 2013.

Quote

Yes, the Publisher is the same and receives some of the revenue from MWO.

Quote

Where the founder's money went for "building the MechWarrior Online community" (It went to Tactics, a fact they again admitted themselves), and the fact that they "hired a whole new team."

June 25, 2013
Project Phoenix. More then 30.000 packages were sold. --> But still no loyalty points. Poor Battlemechs, do you still see 'em anywere?

August, 2013
Ghostheat implented. Pure horrible. Another failure to the system. Alot of players weren't quite happy about that. More broken patches.

September, 2013
New UI 2.0. Click-click-click-click-click. Non friendly user inferface. Poorly done.
Alot of complaints of heavy GPU usage in mechlabs. Bugged out things and more.

December, 2013
Overview of the roadmap: http://mwomercs.com/...e-inner-sphere/
Project The Invasion. Sold less then project Phoenix. But still got amount of money out of it.

March 2014,
Endless matchmaking problems. O.a. 3/3/3/3. Patches were poorly optmized.

June 17th, 2014
Launch of the Invasion. From here it started to go downhill with Paulconomy. Pay some good amount of money for clanners. And make it stomp afterwards.
No real patches, no real optimising, no real basic features.

http://mwomercs.com/...re-association/
How many of this is promised yet?

July, 2014
Introduction and the removal of some modules. Again alot of players were unhappy due they lost slots and have modules worth nothing.

Also Arty / Air spam got increased with the addition of extra slots.

Rejoin patch introduced. Alot of people were have terrible desyncing, fps drops, lag and more problems with the game.
It took PGI more then two month get it partially solved. Yes, partially since it's still ongoing.

Now we have upcoming CW...way too late as promised.

Now PGI is working on another game while MWO is still unifinished and in a poor shape? A Universe to explore.

People have a good reason to be mad. I and many are constantly lied to. So guess where the money from The Invasion go? I am afraid the team is abandoning the ship. I certainly not hope so. But fact remains there development cycle has been horrible. The overall gamequality and patchquality is dissapoining over almost three years.

So, why would i trust PGI again? Or even place faith gat everything is going to be fine?

Edited by Sarlic, 06 September 2014 - 05:21 AM.

[STEF_]

Alymbic, on 06 September 2014 - 01:02 AM, said:

With respect Niko, I think you may have made a very poor strategic move here. Given the current feeling on the MWO forums about game development, it may have been more tactful to not release a tease for this new game and instead wait until you have a more detailed write up. All that you have done in this thread is fuel the negativity in the forums due to a lack of information and pure speculation. It is certainly far from the ideal way to introduce a new game, especially if it is a new IP.

The truly unbelievable fact is that he did it because he was thinking player base would like the hype

Edited by Stefka Kerensky, 06 September 2014 - 03:27 AM.

[Tahribator]

Announcing your new game even before your old one is halfway finished.

I'm seriously getting Hi-Rez vibes here PGI, and it won't end well for your reputation.

[30ft SMURF]

So... PGI could have told us they were expanding the scope of MWO to include space travel, combat and aerospace fighters... I might have had some interest in their supposedly new venture, though I still wouldn't have given them any more money. How they expect to convince people to help them fund a completely new game, when they can't even deliver the first couple they promised just blows my mind. Despite years of data collection, beta testing and now live testing we still have yet to obtain any kind of weapon balance, but y'all bought into the clan packages because they clearly needed a whole new set of weapons to 'balance'... That's worked out so well... They warn us to keep the negativity out of the forums... I'm relatively certian the only reason I havn't grabbed a pitch fork and started looking for ways to burn their business to the ground is I don't have a passport to get to Canada. How anyone can defend this company or the devs defies reason. Some of us play this game because the games we want aren't out yet and we still hope, beyond any reasonable expectations, that this game could become something. Who knows, maybe the idiots running this show could be abducted by aliens and the title could get picked up by a real company... Whatever the case I paid money for a game that wasn't even in full production when they started taking our cash, so I guess its my bad for expecting something in return. They duped me once. I'll just have to laugh when they waste so much money on the new project that they can't even finish this one.

[Sparks Murphey]

Sarlic, on 06 September 2014 - 03:14 AM, said:

September, 2014
MW Tactics got shutdown.


Now PGI is working on another game while MWO is still unifinished and in a poor shape? A Universe to explore.

People have a good reason to be mad. I and many are constantly lied to. So guess where the money from The Invasion go? I am afraid the team is abandoning the ship. I certainly not hope so. But fact remains there development cycle has been horrible. The overall gamequality and patchquality is dissapoining over almost three years.

So, why would i trust PGI again? But that's my opinion.

Interesting you used that quote from the Wikipedia entry on MechWarrior Tactics, since I wrote it. Having written it, I'm quite certain it doesn't contain any reference to MWO, PGI, or A Universe to Explore.

[Lefteye Falconeer]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 06 September 2014 - 12:14 AM, said:

Those guys have their own things that they are doing really well.
We might share the space theme; We are not out to replicate the gameplay of other upcoming titles.

Wouldn't you admit that the line "A UNIVERSE TO EXPLORE", when Elite Dangerous is doing the whole 400 billion universe exploration real thing, with a big focus on exploration, and there's no chance PGI is going to hold up to that, is a bit silly?

I am not saying this can't be a good game, or an original one, I am just saying that the tagline is poorly thought. As it would have been if it were something like "A universe to build your citizenship in!".

[Sarlic]

Sparks Murphey, on 06 September 2014 - 03:32 AM, said:

Interesting you used that quote from the Wikipedia entry on MechWarrior Tactics, since I wrote it. Having written it, I'm quite certain it doesn't contain any reference to MWO, PGI, or A Universe to Explore.

Apologies.

Edited by Sarlic, 06 September 2014 - 03:37 AM.

[Modo44]

I am getting Paradox Interactive vibes from this. The studio is successful enough to start other IPs while continuing work on their main product. Either way, we will know for sure once CW is out, since that will mark the time of no more excuses.

[Impyrium]

Best case scenario: It's a space based BattleTech game that focuses on WarShips, JumpShips and AeroSpace fighters which will link into PGI's upcoming CW for MWO.

Worst case scenario: It's a space themed cart racing game.

Realistic scenario: It's a blatant attempt to jump on the space sim band wagon, probably using MWO's 'engine' as a base.

[CheebaMech]

This needs to be allowed in general discussion, not hidden away here in 'off-topic'. It's fair to say that the community should know about this.

[Rvannith]

There's little confidence for PGI's ability to deliver another title, given the severe mishandling of MWO. Given the glacial pace of development of this game, why should consumers place faith in another product? Many core features that we were promised for MWO still have not been delivered, so it is perfectly understandable for many people here to be very upset. Remember, Founders packages were sold on the description that we were "crowd-funding" a game that included Community Warfare as the core user experience- having little to show after two years is inappropriate, especially given the constant status updates of "within three months".

As far as being constructive: you need to ditch this immediately. Focus on MWO, because if you don't, there are a massive amount of customers who feel betrayed and misled who are going to ensure this never gets off the ground- this thread is full of them, and many have Founders and Phoenix package tags next to their name.

Admit you've stuffed up severely.

Paul, Bryan and Niko need to go.

Actively engage the community. I don't mean getting certain podcasts to shill, I mean actually engage like "PGI_Fox" does on Reddit from time to time, and a lot more often.

Involve the community in the process. The IP is still beloved by many- or we wouldn't even be posting here. And many of us have significant programming and 3D modelling skills. The team modelling mechs and the art team is fine, but the rest appears lacking.

If these things happen, then maybe a year or two down the track people might be more receptive to another title by PGI. In the meantime, I'll be warning my friends to stay away, and I am very confident I'm not the only one. The success of any other PGI game necessitates that MWO is fixed first. There is no other option.

Edited by Rvannith, 06 September 2014 - 04:27 AM.

[Tanreh]

Alymbic, on 06 September 2014 - 02:02 AM, said:

With respect Niko, I think you may have made a very poor strategic move here. Given the current feeling on the MWO forums about game development, it may have been more tactful to not release a tease for this new game and instead wait until you have a more detailed write up. All that you have done in this thread is fuel the negativity in the forums due to a lack of information and pure speculation. It is certainly far from the ideal way to introduce a new game, especially if it is a new IP.

Stefka Kerensky, on 06 September 2014 - 03:21 AM, said:

The truly unbelievable fact is that he did it because he was thinking player base would like the hype

Actually I feel kind of sypathetic with Niko here. I can imagine that the job as Community Manager is not easy with all the (rightful) negative comments at the forums. I can also imagine that he would like to do some positive stuff and trying to raise some
hopeful expectations is for sure something which would brighten his day.

I fully know how it feels if you have to tell people about unpopular decisions...more strongly so if you have been ordered by your superiors to do so while you by yourself are sharing exactly the opposite opinion.

Perhaps it was a shimmer of hope for Nico himself that he wanted to generate some positive feedback everybody of us likes and needs from time to time. I am sure the decision was not his and that he is trying to provide some positive aspects.

It is as usual...the people making the decisions are not the ones who are face to the costumers...they are hiding most of the time and perhaps it is just this experience which kind of rattled me when I read your post, Stefka...

I seriously think that Niko didn't earn this comment

Edit: Typos...

Edited by Tanreh, 06 September 2014 - 04:22 AM.

[Shiro Matsumoto]

Hmm.. it would be easier to believe if there werent many contradictions in PGI´s words in the past... like separate 3pv queues...

I guess we see Clanpack 2 now, soon?

Edited by John McFianna, 06 September 2014 - 04:34 AM.

[RedDragon]

AUSwarrior24, on 06 September 2014 - 03:50 AM, said:

Realistic scenario: It's a blatant attempt to jump on the space sim band wagon, probably using MWO's 'engine' as a base.

I will really lough my a** off if they use the same engine. After all, it was the engine they time and again blamed for most of the missing features, broken deadlines etc.

[Wrathful Scythe]

So, PGI can't even handle MWO and are now announcing a new game? Man, I want to try that stuff which PGI is smoking the last couple months. Who thought that this would be a good Idea? Announcing a new game while the present one is far from beeing finished. What are they thinking?

I am looking forward to CW, it will be a mess but at least its over then.

[Lyoto Machida]

AUSwarrior24, on 06 September 2014 - 03:50 AM, said:

Best case scenario: It's a space based BattleTech game that focuses on WarShips, JumpShips and AeroSpace fighters which will link into PGI's upcoming CW for MWO.

Worst case scenario: It's a space themed cart racing game.

Realistic scenario: It's a blatant attempt to jump on the space sim band wagon, probably using MWO's 'engine' as a base.

If it's a space based Battletech game like you say, why wouldn't they advertise it as such from the get go?

[Viges]

Quote

Piranha is best known for our latest endeavor — MechWarrior Online, an online free-to-play giant robot combat game. MechWarrior Online's incredibly successful Founder's Program proved that we can work directly with our backers to help build a game for the community.

[MikeSteel]

what a douchebags

[Diellur]

This seems to be the equivalent of starting a game with a character then midway through, re-rolling and starting again with the hope the second play-through will be better.

PGI clearly have no morals and to me it appears that they have been using MWO to keep a revenue stream going. How else can you explain a perpetual lack of significant progress despite all the packs they have sold since the original Founders, not to mention the ongoing income from MC purchases and in-game sales?

I don't give two hoots about PGI, but I think the way they've taken the MW franchise and tarnished it this way is disgraceful. And it's probably ended the likelihood of another good Mech game for years to come, if ever. I'm going to watch with interest though - at least with MWO they had a beloved brand to boost them. If they're going into the space exploration genre then it'll be very different as they go up against the Chris Roberts and David Braben heavyweights. I doubt PGI anything to offer that those two haven't already, and as possible backers do some research on PGI, they're going to come across one or two threads about their diabolical management of MWO.