125 replies to this topic

[Kyle Polulak]

Hey there MechWarriors!

Here are the top FAQ questions and Answers from the teaser of #AUniverseToExplore

Please tell us what you think!

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 08 September 2014 - 03:41 PM, said:

Greetings MechWarriors,



Fresh from the desks of our fearless leaders! Here are their responses to your concerns regarding both MWO and #AUniverseToExplore



How does our new project affect the development of MWO?

MWO is not impacted in any negative way by P2, in fact it’s quite the opposite. By having 2 projects we are able to leverage economies of scale from the two projects. For those in accounting – fixed costs (rent, admin, utilities, etc) are now shared among a larger pool of developers, which in turn lowers development costs and allows us to add more resources. In addition we are able to leverage economies of scale with respects to centralization of similar services.



Will MWO be shutdown when P2 is released?

We do not have any plans to shutdown MWO when P2 is released. We are dedicated to developing MWO for as long as our fans show interest in supporting the game!



Why don’t you just finish MWO first?

Community Warfare is the last remaining main feature of the original vision to be delivered. As to CW you have recently seen Unit creation and we are now just a few short months away from delivering this final item. Having said that MWO is never finished. We plan to add content until a) the license expires, players no longer want to support development of new features and content beyond CW.



Who is heading MWO?

Russ will be spearheading MWO and I (Bryan) will be spearheading P2. There will be oversight from both of us on each project.



Was MWO Founder’s money used to pay for development of P2?

No!!! Absolutely not! Every last cent PGI received from the Founder’s program and each consecutive program (Phoenix and Clans) went right back into development of MWO.



What are your future plans for MWO in 2015 and beyond?

Please Join Russ for a town hall tomorrow details to be found here: https://mwomercs.com...-russ-on-twitch . We have some great ideas we would like to share but we also are going to want to hear from you on what you want to see.



Do you plan on renewing your license with Microsoft?

When it expires, and if the game continues to be successful, I don’t see why we would not. It’s quite far in the future (almost 6 years), so it’s hard to look in a crystal ball.



Would you ever divert resources from one project to another?

We will always do whatever is best for the success of our company, which means we will do whatever it takes to build games that are engaging and entertaining for you to play. However this is never something that negatively impacts feature development of a project, see the following question and answer for more details on how this relationship works.



Are you sharing resources between MWO and P2?

The short answer is yes. With the addition of P2 Piranha has undergone and will continue to undergo organizational changes to support the success of both projects.



Each project will have a dedicated core development team; a group of developers that only work on one project at a time. These dev teams are supported by a central Live Operations and Marketing team responsible for keeping the game and websites running smoothly.



Existing Dev Support and Community Management will be moved into a new central Live Ops and Marketing team. We have already staffed up our team to support MWO, and will continue to add resources to help manage the growth of both projects as needed.



Where is the money for P2’s development coming from?

P2 is still very much in it’s infancy. We have funded a small prototype team for the last few months from government subsidies available here in Canada. Although Piranha has many options available to it for funding P2, each of those options comes with significant revenue sharing and more importantly impacts on our control of the product and it’s path. Our hope is that crowdfunding will support the future development.



Are MWO and P2 related/connected?

No, P2 is an original IP.



What is the timeline for remaining Community Warfare features?

Like all features in a game like MWO, I hesitate stating when ALL of a feature will be implemented because many features like Community Warfare may continue to grow and expand indefinitely. However as to the main remaining aspect of planetary combat we still plan to implement this feature late in the fall of 2014. Expect lots of communication on our progress in September.



Does P2 have a publisher?

We do not have a publisher, and we are not looking for one.

[Wintersdark]

Works for me.

I'm excited for P2 - particularly in that it's an original IP, and as such is not constrained in the ways using an existing IP can be. It's been a bit of a rocky road for MWO that way. As much as I love Battletech (and am here because of that love), licensing the IP from Microsoft hurt early development before they had confirmation of the renewal, and being constrained by various battletech facets has made a lot of aspects of the game design and balance difficult.

With original IP, you don't have to worry about these things.

Woot!

[Cimarb]

Today has been awesome for MWO. Keep it up!

[Heffay]

P2? Is that a working title?

Have you locked down the official game name on reddit yet? You just KNOW some people are going to grab it as soon as you announce it...

[Jakob Knight]

I hope you will understand that many of the playerbase will take the answer that MWO will not be negatively impacted by the new project with a grain of salt, based on similar statements in the past. Regrettable, but true.

[Zanathan]

Good information to start off with and I'm looking forward to the town hall.

Although I am surprised at P2 being original IP given there is potential to dwelve further into the Battletech world from a different perspective.

[Kyle Wright]

This isnt as alarming as the first announcement Niko, so good job there. The shared resources helps im sure. With all liscences being bought from IGP, does thsi mean MWO will be able to 1) produce the content they/ community wants faster? and 2) Will you be changing prices to attract more buyer?
( People spend more money using coupons then buying something at full value. I for one would be more inclined to spend $5-8 on non hero mech variants instead of grinding. And spend $10-14 on super special hero mechs. People that play only a couple hours a week that need to grind cbills for mech would jump at spending less than $20 to buy the 3 variants they want instead of spending $20 for 1 variant. See where im going there.)

[slide]

The announcement that PGi has taken over publishing right from IGP pleases me as I always thought that IGP had undue influence over how MWO development was done.

Which leaves the question of what happens to IGP now. Removing their only revenue stream would appear to have sealed the fate of MW:Tactics. It certainly explains why the MWT website has gone dark.

I know it is none of your concern but it would be really helpful to former MWT backers if you could garner some info out of IGP staff for us through your contacts. Assuming anyone still has a job over there.

As an aside I think you should have announced that you were doing you own publishing before you announce the new project. I feel it would have gone down better that way.

[Raghnall]

Some decent insight into things. Let us see what you can do in the coming months to validate things.

Dismayed my question on a single player mechwarrior happening now went unanswered, but I can see you have a full plate of things already.

Edited by Raghnall, 08 September 2014 - 04:14 PM.

[Rebas Kradd]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 08 September 2014 - 03:47 PM, said:

Community Warfare is the last remaining main feature of the original vision to be delivered.

Well, that one's going to elicit cries of b******* from here to Kaetatoa, I'm sorry to say.

What we have now feels like an "Instant Action" version of the game that was promised. Role warfare is present in only rudimentary form, information warfare is disappointingly simple, CW is a wait-and-see, the game modes are narrow and uninvolving, and loads of features and systems (collision, knockdowns, MASC, etc.) are lying in the back room in pieces. There's a lot of work to be done on all these, and a large part of it includes revamping your map design philosophy to actually accomodate role/info warfare. It's not possible on your current maps.

You don't want to be giving people even the slightest impression that "major work is finished". I realize you did say that more features are coming. I hope that includes all the above, and recognizes that MWO steaming on through more mechs and maps alone will not satisfy your original Founders. And the primary source of angst right now is wanting to make sure that adequate dev resources will remain to tackle those features.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 08 September 2014 - 04:23 PM.

[FuzzyLog1c]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 08 September 2014 - 03:47 PM, said:

Community Warfare is the last remaining main feature of the original vision to be delivered. As to CW you have recently seen Unit creation and we are now just a few short months away from delivering this final item. Having said that MWO is never finished. We plan to add content until a) the license expires, players no longer want to support development of new features and content beyond CW.

If you're saying that Unit Creation is the final piece of Community Warfare and marks the culmination of your roadmap for MWO, my only response is: are you [blank]ing kidding me??!

Edited by FuzzyLog1c, 08 September 2014 - 04:26 PM.

[Heffay]

FuzzyLog1c, on 08 September 2014 - 04:24 PM, said:

If you're saying that Unit Creation is the final piece of Community Warfare and marks the culmination of your roadmap for MWO, my only response is: are you [blank]ing kidding me??!

Final *promised* piece. Not the last piece they develop.

[muskrat]

Something I did not see asked nor indicated by the dev's

When you mention Shared Resources, are you INCLUDING
T3 Lines (or fiber lines), Server asset's?

Muskrat

Edited by muskrat, 08 September 2014 - 04:29 PM.

[Gut]

As long as more resources are going into MWO than they have had previously, and work actually gets done, it could be a good thing.

[Alymbic]

Quick question niko, if you are heading up this new project, will you be remaining as moderator/community manager for MWO?

EDIT: Looking at authors is hard

Edited by Alymbic, 08 September 2014 - 05:06 PM.

[Mycrus]

When I heard about the new™ game first thing that came to mind would be the government subsidy angle...

Not satisfied with the faq. .. fool me every 90 days and all that.

[Mal]

Alymbic, on 08 September 2014 - 04:47 PM, said:

Quick question niko, if you are heading up this new project, will you be remaining as moderator/community manager for MWO?

I believe that FAQ was written by Bryan, just posted by Niko.

[Solis Obscuri]

That is all positive news. Coupled with the recent announcement of PGI's independence from IGP, I'm feeling better about things in general. And I really do hope this will lead to quicker fixes/content rollout in MWO.

[Asmudius Heng]

I think you need to clarify about the CW being the last feature bit because most of the community does not believe that information warfare, and role warfare have really been addressed either.

The way you put it makes it sound like MWO is being put into maintainance mode after CW which would be a horrific let down.

Please clarify this or you might be getting a lot of anger directed at you and PGI

[Jonathan Paine]

So you wanted a space game, and doing Aerospace fighters/dropships/warships/orbital installations in the MWO universe never sprung to mind? Seriously?