1234 replies to this topic

[Apnu]

Gravitas, on 11 September 2014 - 06:56 AM, said:

Another Founder, long time and current player of the game, and fan of Battletech/Mechwarrior chiming in here.

This thread started with a most alarming statement from you Niko:


I don't post much, but I have kept up on the forums since beta. I really don't mean to pile on with a cliche, but it is very true in this case. You do reap what you sow. And the unfortunate fact for Niko and current mods, is that certainly a majority of the ill will of this game's fans is because there is a history of a lack of communication or even simple acknowledgement of concerns by the developers. Since beta, there has been a practice of asking for feedback and then not being very forthright with reasoning for not listening to well constructed and thought out criticisms, and there has been a general feeling of not being listened to as a customer base that is interested in seeing a beloved franchise and a game succeed. And when this happens, criticism will rightfully follow. Any business needs to listen to that feedback and react. How you react shapes further feedback. If you do not like your product or processes being legitimately criticized, then make changes. I'd like to say, at least pertaining to the game, that in listening to the Town Hall by Russ, there is a movement to follow up on a better year of action (relative to previous years) and improve. I look forward to it. However, just because it may be an upswing, it does not excuse it from further criticism.

... (bunch of good stuff said, do read it) ...

I add my post in support of my fellow mech warriors and hopes of a better policy going forward.

Well said. I'm also a founder, Phoenix buyer, and staunch IS loyalist. Its for that reason alone I did not buy the clan mechs, nor will so in the future until we are past Operation Bulldog, if we ever get there.

PGI has a serious communication and PR problem. It can be solve by communicating and listening. I listened to Russ' whole Town Hall and he mentioned, many times, about doing "what the players want"

I have but one question related to that: How do you know what the players want?

Let me explain...

Where are your polls of the player community on features? I don't see any coherent survey of player feed back. Sure you have feedback threads, but there are no feature polls for us to give you feed back. And often, in the past, trying to generate our own polls and feature requests have been met with deaf ears.

So when Russ said that players wanted 2+ group sizes and they did that, how did Russ know this is what "we" wanted? Where was the poll on that? Where is the data on that? My unit, HHoD, at the time had several hundred active members (this was before 3PV fallout, ghost heat and cool shot debacles) and none of the members I talked to (I'm an officer in the unit so I talk to a lot of people) was asking for 2+ group sizes. We had no problems filling 4 man lances or even finding 12 man groups. And that's still true today. Any night of the week I can find a 4 man or 12 man group if I want.

So who was asking for this feature and how does PGI know there was a consensus from the community. Seemed to me, at the time, there was maybe 20 active forum posters asking for it, hardly representative of a community of thousands.

It all comes down to communication. Its a two way street.

PGI has to ask the community and paying customers what they want. Let us vote features up and down. Why not?! If that makes us happy and we're paying you for it, who cares?! We get the game we want and play it the way we've voted on and you all get paychecks and happy dances from us fans.

Seems win-win to me.

[Hagoromo Gitsune]

500+ watching this thread... Hell break loose!

Now PGI shall work twice hard to get this blast of shame forgotten


Comrades it's time to make some profit out of PGI while they suffering their failure.

Edited by Hagoromo Gitsune, 11 September 2014 - 07:24 AM.

[Skunk Wolf]

Gwaihir, on 11 September 2014 - 07:17 AM, said:

Doubt it. That would be caving. Can't have that.

We'll get a passive aggressive apology blaming the community for making them do this.

They'll also never admit that there was no "Takeover" of /r/mwo.

They'll string him along today and most of tomorrow. Getting as much work as possible out of him.

Once he's on his way out for the day he'll be kicked to the curb and we'll get a notice why he was let go and the apology.

[Vhetra]

Apnu, on 11 September 2014 - 07:18 AM, said:

*Snipping*

It all comes down to communication. Its a two way street.

PGI has to ask the community and paying customers what they want. Let us vote features up and down. Why not?! If that makes us happy and we're paying you for it, who cares?! We get the game we want and play it the way we've voted on and you all get paychecks and happy dances from us fans.

Seems win-win to me.

SOE did this with Planetside 2, and it worked. It worked phenomenally. I don't understand why PGI couldn't have just done this from the beginning. And even if it WAS IGP ******* it up and blocking them from doing it, why don't they do it NOW? When they're "Free" from IGP?

[Roadkill]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 10 September 2014 - 12:18 PM, said:

I don’t think I am alone when I say ignoring your own site in favor of twitter, ngng, facebook, and reddit has generated a lot of negative feelings with regards to your core playerbase who would like to see the MWO site as the premier MWO news and information source.

You are not alone.

+23409865729837

[Apnu]

Bolow, on 11 September 2014 - 07:09 AM, said:

The future only looks bright because there's about 1200 people dumping gasoline on to the giant bonfire that PGI sparked with that abomination of a kickstarter you want to call Transverse

I really don't understand why there's a bonfire at all. Transverse is being crowdfunded. The easiest way to show displeasure is to ignore it. Talking about it, burning it in effigy only gives PGI free press. People are actually helping PGI get word out by freaking out over it.

But I also know gamers. If there is an opportunity to be prima-donna trolls, they'll take it. Gamer's can't help themselves.

PGI needs to learn this. Gamers are a predictable lot, I'd be shocked if no-one at PGI couldn't see this coming. But then, perhaps PGI is that tone-deaf. Niko, Russ, Bryan.... you need to open your ears.

I'm not advocating the cyber-bullying you're experiencing right now. I'm against it. But from a business perspective, PGI, you have to hear the ugly monkey poo-flinging, its valuable sales feed back.

[Gwaihir]

Roadkill, on 11 September 2014 - 07:27 AM, said:

You are not alone.

+23409865729837

Having to go hunt around for official news releases on a shitload of different sites is very obnoxious, it's true. If only there was a good CM that kept the real site up to date

Edited by Gwaihir, 11 September 2014 - 07:30 AM.

[Banned]

I'm on an island and that island is sinking.
That island likes to stay up all night drinking.
How could I escape it?
Do you think that I will make it out alive?

The other island is one that I'm well acquainted.
For three whole years I've been back and forth 'til I nearly fainted.
I loved that island dearly,
But I've hunted all the animals into extinction.

And I was born to sail away.
And I was born to live my life.
I think I should learn to swim or build a boat to love myself again,
To learn to be self-sufficient.

[Bulvar Jorgensson]

Maybe if we throw enough pebbles in the water PGI will notice when the ripples all hits them at once......oh wait by that time it might be too late?????

Poll's, proper promotion of events (at least a week prior to them happening, not the Friday they land) everything a proper Online game promotes to their players.......you get more by giving more....

And re-work some of your MC item costs and you could sell more, therefore keeping a constant cash flow.

Heck think up a way of getting some hardware sponsorship, a Mech warrior Keyboard like the old Xbox console one(if I could find a link I would post it)..PGI seems to think this game will live on the games merits......

It aint working properly at the mo guys...please give yourselves a shake and look at your forums.

[Shredhead]

Giverous, on 11 September 2014 - 07:09 AM, said:

Shredhead - Seriously? How can you be that deluded?

I'm not. I have my very own pack of critizism. I still try not to threaten, insult or troll the **** out of the company. I want them to learn from their mistakes in a healthy way.

Quote

There are over 1000 replies to this post, overwhelmingly negative in nature. You are not part of any kind of 'us' except for the diehard PGI suckups

Then, if you're not such a "suckup", aka not even playing the game, what the f*ck are you doing here?

Quote

who somehow can't see the way that they have been lied to and mistreated by the company.

I have just decided to live with it and move on, mostly because I don't know what the reasons were. I can absolutely understand if people can not and move on to supposedly greener pastures.

Quote

The CORE GAME MECHANIC is STILL not in the game, YEARS after launch.

The core game mechanic is in and I like it very much. It's shooting big effing robots with other big effing robots. I never needed CW, nor is it needed in such games overall. CS, CoD 1+2, Battlefield and so on and so forth. They all don't need an overarching meta game to get their players hooked for decades.

Quote

Seriously, it's almost like you were not there at the beginning, like you didn't hear all of the promises that they've broken - but you WERE. How can you still support a company that has treated you this way?

See above.

[Kekrebos]

Apnu, on 11 September 2014 - 07:28 AM, said:

I'm not advocating the cyber-bullying you're experiencing right now. I'm against it. But from a business perspective, PGI, you have to hear the ugly monkey poo-flinging, its valuable sales feed back.

I'd have to say that a good chunk of this discussion has absolutely nothing to do with cyber-bullying. That is such a crap term anymore thrown out in places it doesn't belong. There has been a VERY small number of posts that are anywhere even on the same continent with bullying.

[D34K]

It's got to be said -- with regret -- that there's a real danger of jobs being lost in the near future unless PGI change their ways and start to win back some good faith. It can be done, but some things need to change dramatically.

You can't operate a company in this way and get away with it; the taint will follow you. Customers have a real voice now thanks to social media and forums -- PGI's staff and management need to learn a much greater respect for that. Apparently they have none and have thus made themselves a repeated target.

PGI also need to make things right with their customers.

Announcing Transverse and then making statements like "CW is the final missing feature of MWO and it will be ready by the end of year" is so inflammatory to customers who have had to endure so much over the last 2.5 years. Yeah, CW is what you promised, but you're a million miles away from making things right with your customers.

Edited by D34K, 11 September 2014 - 07:37 AM.

[Bolow]

This makes what 3 white knights in 55 pages?

[ThisMachineKillsFascists]

Russ Bullock, on 09 September 2014 - 11:32 PM, said:

Your probably right. In the morning Niko probably will do just that.

He means "with will do that": Niko will shut the Thread down

Russ Bullock, on 09 September 2014 - 11:29 PM, said:

Well this wasn't very uplifting.



I appreciate the OP and his point of view, always nice to have support. Of course it's hard to hear people that don't seem to want to accept anything good but only focus on items of 1-2 years ago.



But...



For me I feel like were starting fresh now. I hope everyone listened to the town hall and we can admit that 2014 was significantly different in many ways and that we are close to delivering that final of the 4 pillars.



That final pillar, its getting close and then I hope that once that happens the tone can change to at the very least "that took too long but we have everything they promised, now lets all get along and try to keep making this game better".



Silly me I know, but I am an optimist when it comes to people. Anyhow I look forward to sharing more about CW with you in the near future.

He means with final pillar Cw.lol regarding to russ he is about to deliver al the promises which have been made to he founders with the final pillar

Russ Bullock, on 09 September 2014 - 11:46 PM, said:

Yes it takes time I agree. For some the past 9 months might mean a lot. For you I guess not and that is 100% your prerogative.



We will continue working hard.

The last post is about trust

--------------------------
http://mwomercs.com/...gi/page__st__40

and today this massive thread from dissapointed ppl. How does it feels now russ? Whos now on an island?

Edited by ThisMachineKillsFascists, 11 September 2014 - 09:40 AM.

[wanderer]

Quote

ummmm..... What's a reddit?

It's that place where all the MWO news generally comes from first, along with Twitter- rather than the MWO Forum Ghetto.

Likely still will be. http://www.reddit.com/r/OutreachHPG/ and it's Islandia-based cousin http://www.reddit.com/r/MWO/

[Bongfu]

Bolow, on 11 September 2014 - 07:38 AM, said:

This makes what 3 white knights in 55 pages?

Did we... did we break OutreachHPG?

[Horrace]

Community warfare doesn't sound much fun anyway, it's clearly something they just want to push out the door while they try to raise enough money to figure out how to fly their new spaceships.

I know I'll be flying some spaceships soon (backed both Elite and Star Citizen) PGI sadly can't say the same.

[IllCaesar]

Bolow, on 11 September 2014 - 07:09 AM, said:

The future only looks bright because there's about 1200 people dumping gasoline on to the giant bonfire that PGI sparked with that abomination of a kickstarter you want to call Transverse

Good to see he's at least paying somewhat attention, even if he might get the wrong message.

Look, I won't go so far as to say that firing Niko is the best course of action for PGI or the game. That said, this can't be swept under the rug, and there has to be a takeaway, a learning experience. PGI's never going to get as opportune a moment to start turning things around as now. Of course, any turn around would takes months to really be visible, but if it were to happen, months from now, all these people who abandoned the game due to unending frustrations due to the relationship with PGI will return. This thread reads "Founder" over and over and over, its a shame to spoil that reunion.

The cynic in me says that they'll only realize their mistake once Transverse fails to even reach its first stretch goal. Somewhat related, anybody remember the big blow up about the new Xbox console last year, with a bunch of awful restrictions being added to it that had gamers in a fit of rage, alongside what I can only consider to be the worst PR I've witnessed in gaming history. ( ). You know what finally got Microsoft to turn around on everything that people were upset with? The Playstation 4, its direct competitor, had five times as many pre-orders as their new Xbox. Money talks.

Edited by MarsAtlas, 11 September 2014 - 07:45 AM.

[fil5000]

wanderer, on 11 September 2014 - 07:40 AM, said:

It's that place where all the MWO news generally comes from first, along with Twitter- rather than the MWO Forum Ghetto.

Likely still will be. http://www.reddit.com/r/OutreachHPG/ and it's Islandia-based cousin http://www.reddit.com/r/MWO/

As a regular at r/mwo, I think it's only fair to point out that it's HPGs drunk, yelling cousin that goes everywhere with it's trousers around it's ankles.

[Bongfu]

fil5000, on 11 September 2014 - 07:44 AM, said:

As a regular at r/mwo, I think it's only fair to point out that it's HPGs drunk, yelling cousin that goes everywhere with it's trousers around it's ankles.

Can't stop the singal