215 replies to this topic

[Horrace]

When can I pre-order whatever this is?

[Jonny Taco]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 06 September 2014 - 02:51 PM, said:

There may come a time when MWO can be called "feature complete", I think we can safely say we're not even close to that point yet.

Glad to know that we will be in beta for another few years!

Seriously though... I've played many many games over the years and this is bar none the most hostile community towards the developers I've ever come across... There comes a point were you can no longer place the blame on others (the customers in this case) and instead will have to take responsibility for the companies actions which have directly lead to the general mood of the community. I strongly suggest that you pressure Bryan or whomever will be writing/answering the faq to give 100% honest responses with absolutely minimal smugness... If the faq fails as bad as the communications over the past two days have, I don't expect a good outcome for pgi...

Edited by lartfor, 06 September 2014 - 03:47 PM.

[DAYLEET]

Why is PGI working on a new title right now and how has that come to fruition? Is it IGP idea or PGI?

[Opus]

After reading all these posts

[Leded]

am i not alone in thinking that if this "new project" was "Mechwarrior 5" that very few people would be angry? just a thought.

but considering the amount of $$$ i've thrown at these guys over time i seem to be surprisingly "meh" about this. i must be in one of my indifferent moods today.

[ToxinTractor]

Im sorry PGI but I feel you guys need to work on MWO. You have stated that you got the license for 10 (?) more years. Should focus on making MWO a success. not just some thing you can make money off of for a bit then dump it.

I love this game but it needs more dev time. you guys can refine MWO and learn new ways to make money or improve your service. Look at war gaming as a example. Yes they have other games now (Past and present) but they didnt start on new games until there main game WoT was a success. they nursed it and babied it until it can hold its own. They also started doing other things to get players spending money. (sales/events/gold give aways.)

Please I beg you. Dont pull a EA games. You have so much potential to make your company grow from more then the little studio you have in Vancouver (Ive seen it. its tiny.... visited the international market back in august.) You growth is happening yes. but please dont rush it and burn your self out. Many of you have a long history of game development but many of them have NOT been a success. You have a chance to make MWO the thing that stands out in your career. Please make it so.

[Jabilo]

For me the big question is the money.

Has any money raised by MWO gone in to the new project?

I will tell you now, that while you have not made any explicit promises that money made from MWO will be spent on MWO, that is the understanding most people have when they spend money on this game.

How many threads and post have we seen where people talk about "supporting the game" when discussing the purchases they have made? I will tell you. A lot.

If it turns out this is not the case there will be a lot of unhappy people and in my opinion quite rightly so.

I have spent money on the MWO and most of the time it is because I wanted what I have paid for. I get what I want and you get the money - no harm no foul. In this respect you owe me nothing more.

But I have also made purchases that I was pretty ambivalent about, because I specifically wanted to support the game. Because after all this time waiting for a Battletech game I wanted it to be a success and not fail. There are one hell of a lot of people who have done that too, and if some of that cash has been siphoned off they will be reluctant to ever spend more.

Not to mention the fact that development of MWO has been slow, with many missed deadlines and broken promises along the way. A lot of your defenders say that we should be patient. You are a small studio working as hard as you can. Everything will be great eventually. There will be jam tomorrow....

Now you pull a new game out of the bag and people think: "Well actually they have the cash and resources to start a new project - why is development of MWO stalled?"

I think it is very justifiable for people to be worried and a little upset.

I look forward to your comments and hope that you are able to reassure the community.

Edit: Also, burying this thread in off topic is cheap. Yes it is not directly related to MWO the game, but it does directly affect, interest and concern the games community and should be stickied in General. Not a good start on your part.

Edited by Jabilo, 06 September 2014 - 03:44 PM.

[Roland]

Given that PGI's past explanation for failure to deliver on things like CW, or even things as simple as maps, were based upon the idea that PGI is a small studio with limited resources, it seems like a poor decision to try and create a whole separate game.

Further, the only saving grace for Mechwarrior Online is the Battletech IP.... Attempting to make a generic scifi space game, and go directly up against Cloud Imperium, is doomed to complete failure.

You aren't Chris Roberts. Without an already established IP to back up your game, Star Citizen is going to crush you.

Hell, Star Citizen already snatched up thousands of your users and got them to donate millions of dollars to their game... and those were guys who actually were already invested in the Battletech IP.

[On1m]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 06 September 2014 - 02:51 PM, said:

There may come a time when MWO can be called "feature complete", I think we can safely say we're not even close to that point yet. In the weeks to come, We're going to see a handful of individuals move on from MWO to take senior roles in the new project; Don't panic! We're also going to see (and are already) seeing many new fresh-faces on staff. If it helps the mental imagery, Bryan was rummaging around the office with a measuring tape the other day trying to figure out how we're going to fit all the extra workstations needed. We're going to get to benefit from the added wisdom and experience of these new team-members too.

Please tell me one of these new staff members is a Crytec map engineer.

[Redshift2k5]

What lessons have you learned from MWO that you feel will make the new project succeed where MWO has faltered? (specifically the major issues of slipped deadlines and announced features not making it into final implementation)

[Jaguar Prime]

This may have been asked before but i will ask again.

Is this an entirely new development team for this new game? Or, is the current MWO development team sharing working on this project?

If the former, why wasn't this new team added to the current MWO team to speed up production on features promised two years ago?

If the later, How are they suppose to meet deadlines working two projects when they are having trouble making deadlines working one? Are promised feature additions going to be released slower than they currently are?




And yes I'm referring to features promised in closed and open beta.

[DoktorVivi]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 06 September 2014 - 02:11 PM, said:

Otherwise, with regards to communications. I've already put together and effected a stronger social media policy for PGI which codifies the expectations for a healthier community. Everyone has been on-board with the new set of rules and even helped me find the holes in it's wording and logic in the initial drafts. The overarching goal of this all is to have a have a forward-facing policy which not only we, but you too can hold us to. One which embraces the philosophies of honesty, timeliness[size=4] and effective knowledge management.

Probably should have enacted this BEFORE this announcement. Because this is going to get out of control over the weekend. Seriously, you people need to hire a PR Manager. Whatever you guys are waiting for Monday to post should have been posted the instant the game was announced. Now you're just letting people stew in their worries until you can be bothered to getting around to them.

Edited by DoktorVivi, 06 September 2014 - 04:01 PM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

DoktorVivi, on 06 September 2014 - 03:59 PM, said:

Probably should have enacted this BEFORE this announcement. Because this is going to get out of control over the weekend. Seriously, you people need to hire a PR Manager. Whatever you guys are waiting for Monday to post should have been posted the instant the game was announced. Now you're just letting people stew in their worries until you can be bothered to getting around to them.

The reaction would have probably been the same.

[Eboli]

Question:
1. What game engine will you be using for this next game and will the assets created in MWO be used in this new product?
2. Will you be developing the necessary software to allow MWO players to play MWO "offline" from their pcs when you close the doors on MWO?
3. Do you really fuly appreciate the concern that this information has created among our community and what reassurances can you provide to ensure that we know the game is going to still be here at least one year from now?

Opinion. It is good to see that Niko has stated that there will still be work on MWO but I really hope you appreciated the massive concern from players who have continued to back MWO over the years waiting for a game to fully developed with promises being delayed due to statements that there are limited resources.

I too have taken the view that any monies invested in this game was going back into the game to support its growth and development.

A positive view to all this is that if the next game is successful it will help suport the server costs which should hopefully allow the continuance of this game to survive (server wise).

Eboli

Edited by Eboli, 06 September 2014 - 04:15 PM.

[AntharPrime]

I'll wait for more info on Monday. It would be neat if this "new" project was an expansion of MWO. Before they told us that a combined ops, was not in their short term plans but if they decided to create a new MWO with Star Citizen style features of being able to walk around without your mech, use tanks and aircraft and even use dropships in game would be astounding. I'll not hold my breath on this but MWO has better gameplay than SC and I would pick MWO first despite the development and balance problems.

Edit: So my question would be: Is the new project an expansion of MWO that would use combined ops?

Edited by AntharPrime, 06 September 2014 - 04:47 PM.

[Pht]

Ok.

So, PGI is indeed hiring people for the new proejct AND they've already previously extended the usage of the licensing rights for MW till 2020. I'm betting the new project was already planned and know about when the licensing was extended.

For what it's worth, my experience is that employers of PGI's size don't hire people unless they think they have the money to keep them around long enough for them to be profitable. Not even businesses that hire for one contract only / keep the best - fire the rest tend to violate this.

IMO pgi perceives that they can support the new employees long enough for the new project to turn a profit. They also want to turn a profit on MWO, which, all screaming aside, they KNOW means they have to give out what sells to the MWO community. Amongst the selling points is continued support after final features are added.

FYI for the people at PGI.

Those coming into MWO from the MW4 gaming community are extremely sensitive on the topic of support because of the poor way that MW4 was supported. I can tell you first hand from good sources that, for instance, the MW4 heatbug that allowed you to run OBSCENE heat levels with nearly no downsides wasn't fixed until someone dragged one of the remaining support staff into a MW4 server onto the steiner coloseium map where he was "probed in his orifices" against his will for thirty minutes continuously by people abusing the heatbug.

There was also the madcat MK2 bug where it's hitboxes lagged behind it's visual representation in an unpredictable manner when it was jumping which was abused horribly for months and months on end before it got fixed.

I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus here - just giving PGI a heads up.

Edited by Pht, 06 September 2014 - 04:27 PM.

[Kin3ticX]

Hi PGI,

Will the new space game be a FTP instant action arena style similar to MWO or are you going for a persistent universe/MMO(or something else)?

Regarding the future of MWO, can we get a hint at your plans for the game beyond CW phase 3 and the release of the c-bill Warhawk?

Edited by Kin3ticX, 06 September 2014 - 04:40 PM.

[AntharPrime]

BLOOD WOLF, on 06 September 2014 - 04:38 PM, said:

Bryan did give fair warning as to the parameters.

Thanks for pointing that out. I went back and added a question based on my statement.

If it is not MWO related, I wonder what IP, if any, that the new game is based on?

[AntharPrime]

BLOOD WOLF, on 06 September 2014 - 04:54 PM, said:

Who knows, that is up in the air at this moment. I anticipate more news on the matter.

I really like MWO but luckily I'm not going to get exited or upset like some others have been. Best to just relax, watch Doctor Who and wait until Monday.

[keith]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 06 September 2014 - 02:51 PM, said:

There may come a time when MWO can be called "feature complete", I think we can safely say we're not even close to that point yet. In the weeks to come, We're going to see a handful of individuals move on from MWO to take senior roles in the new project; Don't panic! We're also going to see (and are already) seeing many new fresh-faces on staff. If it helps the mental imagery, Bryan was rummaging around the office with a measuring tape the other day trying to figure out how we're going to fit all the extra workstations needed. We're going to get to benefit from the added wisdom and experience of these new team-members too.

i am concerned about this statement. BT has a HUGE lore. at the rate PGI is going it will take many more years to finish, my guess another 5-10.

http://www.sarna.net...ory:BattleMechs
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Weapons

still quite a bit of missing weps/mechs. we are still stuck in the 3050 time line