215 replies to this topic

[Tahribator]

About negative and ranty responses, I don't know what you were expecting. The core of this community is not formed by random mainstream people playing "a big robot game", but by Battletech fans who paid hundreds of dollars to see this game developed further. Anything taking away from that development(even in their eyes) is going to be met with negativity and resistance.

That being said, the best way to calm this community is to release a roadmap for MWO. Can you provide us a development roadmap for MWO, which extends to possibly 2016? That'd calm the community down and reassure skeptics.

[CyclonerM]

Tahribator, on 06 September 2014 - 07:25 AM, said:

About negative and ranty responses, I don't know what you were expecting. The core of this community is not formed by random mainstream people playing "a big robot game", but by Battletech fans who paid hundreds of dollars to see this game developed further. Anything taking away from that development(even in their eyes) is going to be met with negativity and resistance.

That being said, the best way to calm this community is to release a roadmap for MWO. Can you provide us a development roadmap for MWO, which extends to possibly 2016? That'd calm the community down and reassure skeptics.

"Bryan Ekman likes this"

Anyway, i think MWO: The Plan is close enough to what you are asking. Considering that developement priorities can change suddenly and new issues will be discovered i hardly think that a roadmap trough 2015 and 2016 could be very detailed and accurated

Edited by CyclonerM, 06 September 2014 - 07:32 AM.

[Dystar]

Fully agree with Tahribnator. A roadmap with realistic goals that are MET ON TIME will go a LONG way towards keeping the critics quiet. I had sworn to never pay any money to PGI until we got A: Full CW or B: The Warhammer mech. I figured I'd never see either of these. But I DID like the look of the direwolf ALOT so I figured hey, I've been playing and enjoying this so long I should support it so 3 weeks ago I forked over 50 bucks for the direwolf package. Now this... I woulda saved my money

[TopDawg]

Bryan Ekman, on 06 September 2014 - 06:53 AM, said:

Our first thread contained the (expected) unruly responses. We've packed it up, given it to Superman, and he's on his way to the sun now.

Let's try again:

Please post questions you may have regarding MWO and #auniversetoexplore. Quality questions that show respect will be answered on Monday!

• Please keep it civil, no swearing, insults, jabs, call outs, etc.
  
• Personal opinions can be saved for a later date, only questions.
  
• Be polite, avoid discussing the questions, as this creates a noisy thread.

This thread will be actively moderated to keep it focused and on track.

Here are some examples to help:

• How does your new game impact the production of MWO?
  
• Are you sharing resources (money, team members) between MWO and the new project?

I have a question. Why do you want people to be polite, when you yourself are not? Your post says that you expected unruly responses. Why would you expect that? Why would you post this announcement here (twice, now) if you expected that?

More importantly though, I hope ChronoJam will repost his points from the last thread you jettisoned. He had very valid points that I hope you will take the time to answer. In case he does not though, I will try to briefly summarize from what I can remember: He posted a timeline of you stating that MWO staff was growing, when in reality the numbers you gave showed that it was actually shrinking. The implications of this, especially in light of this new game reveal (which mentions it as "going to be the largest production ever undertaken here at Piranha"), are rather obvious and any clarification would be much appreciated!

Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions on Monday! And lastly, a friendly suggestion, you may want to include a link to the product you are trying to advertise for, as those were all lost in the last thread. Again, thanks!

[Heydiddly]

You stated that QA will be shared between the two projects, have you/will you beef up the QA team to account for this? My understanding from one of Karl Berg's posts somewhere in his superthread is that they already struggle to keep up with their workload sometimes, so doubling said workload could cause a serious bottleneck in the development pipelines of BOTH projects.

[Saint Scarlett Johan]

Will Paul be working exclusively on this new title and someone else takes his place for MWO?

[wanderer]

Will PGI be buying out IGP in the near future to give themselves a marketing arm for your new venture?

[Bilbo]

Interesting. What would one be piloting in this new game?

[Mystere]

With all due respect, how do you expect us to have any confidence in your ability to deliver on the promises you made to the Founders?

[Seeker Kirov]

For those of us who are not interested in AUTE because we are basement-dwelling neckbeards that are infatuated with giant robots and have spent considerable portions of our discretionary income on a game that already exists, is there an upside to this new game? Is this new project going to open up some new options for MW:O? This is a scary announcement for anyone familiar with the Global Assault -> Tribes Ascend -> Smite progression over at Hi-Rez.

Edited by August Immanuel, 06 September 2014 - 07:49 AM.

[SwanseaAxeman]

To play devils advocate; I run a game studio and just want to put some things into perspective from my point of view.

I have played MWO since beta and yes, it has had its share of growing pains (to say the least) but presently the game works reasonably well. Though I do understand why people are worrying about the announcement of a new game Piranha is developing.

But you have to take a couple of things into account before you make any decisions on the future of MWO.

The game has been in development for a while and it has been bringing in quite a lot of revenue. Now outside of any agreed promise to put all proceeds back into development, there is no obligation to use all the money to continue to develop MWO.

Now I would assume that the game has made enough money to budget X amount of development in the coming months/years on MWO. It is totally within Piranhas right to assign a budget to MWO and use that budget to complete tasks that have been agreed previously. Any profit that is made on top could (and would if it was me) get put back into the company coffers to allow development of other games.

Piranha is a game development studio and by that fact alone it should not come as a surprise that they will develop other games. I would not get too worried about that impacting on the development of MWO. Pre-production can take months and if MWO has say 2 years of development left, then I can't see any reason why they shouldn't start pre-prodcution whilst still developing MWO.

If they say that they will complete the game and put money from MWO back into its development, then I would believe they will do that. But I wouldn't get upset at the fact they want to ensure their staff still have jobs when MWO's development is 100% complete. Its just good business sense and I wouldn't give them crap about it.

Sure voice your concerns, but outside of them telling you "Don't worry, MWO won't be impacted by our new game" there is not a lot else they can tell you.

I know these aren't questions, but I didn't get a chance to post this in the other thread.

Edited by SwanseaAxeman, 06 September 2014 - 08:06 AM.

[Son of the Flood]

What is the phrase we need to type into the auniversetoexplore website?

Interested in the new project, but most interested in MWO continuing to grow and improve for many years to come.

[IllCaesar]

Assuming the new project is a PGI game, relatively unaffiliated with any other development studios, what kind of game will it be? I would hope not to see a single studio try to juggle two MMOs at once, and honestly, I'd feel much more placated if it isn't an MMO.

How will this new game impact the growth of MWO? MWO isn't quite as big as any of us would have liked, and there's a lot of factors in it that make it difficult for new players to join. You're now making a second game, which if a multiplayer-oriented release or an MMO will require its own playerbase, so how would you reconcile trying to grow two different playerbases at once? We need the playerbase to be strong for the MMO to survive - this isn't like a previous Mechwarrior game where we can pop it in when we're feeling nostalgic or play on a private server - once supporting MWO is no longer feasible, our investment in the game is gone, poof, out of existence with the flip of a switch. I don't think anybody here expects MWO to be around for twenty years, but the concern is that MWO might not even make it to 2017.

Edited by MarsAtlas, 06 September 2014 - 08:04 AM.

[Lysander Voidrunner]

I am VERY apprehensive about this. For a studio of 50ish people to take on 2 big projects (one that they're struggling to keep up with content production). Unless PGI compartmentalizes and does so in a way that leaves the MWO fully staffed, then both projects are doomed.

Furthermore, from the general feel of it, it looks like a space sim/star citizen clone. I might be TOTALLY off my rocker here. But let's assume I am not. What makes PGI think that they can compete with Star Citizen or Elite? The only reason the founder program worked so well is the same reason Elite and SC got money thrown at them so much. They nostalgia factor. Chris Roberts is the reason SC got so much money thrown at it and Elite itself is a franchise that has a storied past. MWO used the Mechwarrior name. Keeping in mind that PGI has a reputation to rebuild after that whole year and a half late deal. I want to know how PGI is planning on marketing the new game seeing as (provided I am right about the nature of the new project) it is seen as lesser capable developer than RSI etc as evidenced by these forums and PGI's relationship with the community. I'm not trying to be divisive here, I really am not, but seeing that in 3 years we got 10 maps for MWO and only at certain intervals we got major updates that added 12v12 and skirmish modes, and a few tweeks, I don't see the community wholeheartedly jumping in behind the new project. Don't get me wrong, I do understand that the majority of the game's changes have been under the hood and that's all good and proper, but let's remember that just like icebergs, people only comprehend what they can see and feel and tend not to appreciate the monstrous amount of work that works in the background.

[Tabrias07]

When are we going to see some new maps?

Do you expect the founder's program for AUTE will be as successful as the one for MWO?

How long until you stop development on MWO entirely?

[Demospata]

I am extremely disappointed in hearing this news. I supported the game as a founder and even bought the full clan package. Even though MWO is nothing but a glorified arena fps, I still enjoy the combat as it is unique in the fps genre. However, upon hearing this news makes me extremely worried because the reality of MWO is that it's incomplete. Many of the promises made during the founders program has yet to be realized and the audacity to start announce a new project when your current project is still a work in progress leaves me very disappointed. I threw my money into MWO because I believe that while incomplete, the game has a lot of potential for the future beyond just CW etc. What I want from PGI is to not pull a Hi-Rez on us and drop MWO support and development for whatever new project they are working on.

[Lord Ikka]

Tahribator, on 06 September 2014 - 07:25 AM, said:

About negative and ranty responses, I don't know what you were expecting. The core of this community is not formed by random mainstream people playing "a big robot game", but by Battletech fans who paid hundreds of dollars to see this game developed further. Anything taking away from that development(even in their eyes) is going to be met with negativity and resistance.

That being said, the best way to calm this community is to release a roadmap for MWO. Can you provide us a development roadmap for MWO, which extends to possibly 2016? That'd calm the community down and reassure skeptics.

This is your best shot at not losing a lot of players. I've been playing this game for two years now, so have much of my regiment, but the faith is failing. PGI needs to give us some real answers and not just industry hyperbole talk. Start showing us some of the stuff that you have promised- a new game is not that, especially when you have spoken previously about not being able to get enough people on your current staff to do everything for MWO.

[Bryan Ekman]

Just a reminder - polite, unveiled, questions won't be moderated. See forum topic. Avoid comments/replies/discussions please.

[Rogue Jedi]

Son of the Flood, on 06 September 2014 - 07:57 AM, said:

What is the phrase we need to type into the auniversetoexplore website?

Read the question and answer it assuming it was an extraterrestrial asking, it took me 1 guess to get it after noticing the character limit, it was not a 1 word answer.

[Gemini2]

My question. #Auniversetoexplore - I am confused, does this mean community warfare is incoming?