36 replies to this topic

[Malcolm Vordermark]

A staggered release of the maps/game mode can still potentially create a period of time where someone who purchased them will be unable to play them because there are not enough players to fill many matches on those maps/in those game modes.

[Tremendous Upside]

Quxudica, on 11 September 2014 - 06:06 PM, said:

This seems like a backwards view on this issue, to me anyway. The community shouldn't be expected to eat a bad business model to support the devs no matter how much they may love the product, it should be up to the dev's to figure out how to improve their business model so more people see it as good value for their money.

A service issue, which this is at its core, is the responsibility of the service provider. The responsible consumer's only concern is whether or not the service is good value for their money, if it isn't then it is entirely correct for them to not spend their money on it until it does become good value for money.

Supporting something you enjoy is fine, but it's not a charity. Even if I love a product, I'm not going to pay massive markups on it when I don't see the value I'm getting in return as worth the cost.

Hey, I'm not saying that "I" would eat the deal. I'm just saying it is what it is... Next week we'll get a new pack released. Wait till just after Xmas or so and you'll probably get another one. It's pretty obvious that it's a non-negotiable if not crucial part of the business model.

[cSand]

Exclusive mechs and paying for maps..

bad idea train

[Naduk]

DAYLEET, on 11 September 2014 - 05:24 PM, said:

It works for Battlefield4 and it's not a free to play game that relies on the people buying more. It does not split the community, why would it split the community in a free to play game that exist thanks to everyone contributing with a small ammount of cash. Because you dont want to contribute?

I agree, stop selling mech pack. Release mech for mc/cbills on the same day, no preorder bs. and sell us expansion with 3 maps every 4 months for 120$. add a few free goodies in there too so people are happy.

no it does NOT work for battlefield4
do you know what happens when you are a basic member with no map packs and your trying to play with your friend who is a Premium member ?
the both players can ONLY play on vanilla maps if they want to play together

this is A boring for the Premium player who wants to enjoy new shiny content when it comes out
and B mega frustrating to the basic player who just wants to play with his friends

you can take that and shove it up your god damn nose it has NO PLACE IN MECHWARRIOR

[eblackthorn]

Maps or other game related items could be included as stretch goals on a sale, just release them to everyone. It still encourages sales to reach the next level and no one is left out. I would only have a problem with this if maps/others were only developed in this way. But as an extra thing to encourage sales and give everyone a little something extra? why not?

[AlexEss]

Seeing how we have three maps in the pipeline i would not worry all that much. In fact we might have four maps if the first CW maps is not one of the maps announced

CW is the next big "expansion" and it will bring more play modes. But since it pretty much takes up all resources right now new game modes outside of that is not very likley.

I am going to vote no on the op´s suggestion mostly due to him/her not bothering to read up on the current news.

[NextGame]

im in favour of expansion packs, but perhaps not in the precise format that the OP suggests. might come back to this thread later and expand on that statement.

[maxdest]

Naduk, on 11 September 2014 - 02:37 PM, said:

NO NO NO NO NO
a million times NO

/snip

And other comments of similar nature.
I think the original post makes it clear, but to re-iterate.

In this idea extra maps / features are free to everyone.

They are essentially stretch goals for mech pack sales, and a way to commit PGI to delivering things except mechs. As of now we buy mech packs / MC and just trust PGI to do the other stuff. This idea commits development to non-mechs, and I think offers a more exiting and fun way to release content.


Q: Why Staggered release of maps / features?
This is to give PGI time to build the extra items if they meet their stretch goals of mech pack sales, although I expect that in reality all the stretch goals would probably be in development anyway, and the last couple of months of staggering would just be to finish them off / QA.

Q: But this is just to add extra maps?
No, you could cover game modes and other things using this model too, read the Solaris example in the original post. I think in reality due to development times, core game features would be part of the base pack, with stretch goals being smaller enhancements.

[Alex Warden]

Appogee, on 11 September 2014 - 03:11 PM, said:

There is flaw with your cunning plan.

First, PGI would actually have to make some maps... something they haven't had the resourcesto do for the better part of a year, because they've been churning out Clan Mechs.

a fact that won´t change too much, if you listen closely to the "townhall meeting" this week... they MIGHT become a little faster, but i doubt the frequency of new maps will be raised significantly... PGI still refuses to raise the manpower of departements for maps and gameplay elements... they´ll keep on focusing on mechs (oh miracle) and their new lovely project instead...

[maxdest]

Alex Warden, on 12 September 2014 - 12:11 PM, said:

a fact that won´t change too much, if you listen closely to the "townhall meeting" this week... they MIGHT become a little faster, but i doubt the frequency of new maps will be raised significantly... PGI still refuses to raise the manpower of departements for maps and gameplay elements... they´ll keep on focusing on mechs (oh miracle) and their new lovely project instead...

If the idea proposed got popular support, and was actually implemented, it would tie PGI to development of non-mechs in a way that would hard for them to back away from.

Look at my icons, I only purchased original founders (and some MC since) . I won't be buying any packs unless we get commitment to non-mech development, as the idea above proposes.

[KamikazeRat]

do alot of people just read 2 or 3 lines and then post? cause...wow...like 6 people in a row "bad idea, don't buy maps"

with his idea anyone can play on them. its just you're buying mech packs(that they're going to make anyway) and when they hit certain tiers of sales, they promise to release X feature/map/shiny by X date.

how complex is that?

[EgoSlayer]

I see where your idea is going - but why even tie it to some other deliverable that consumes a lot of resources like Mechs?

Why not just have an MC sale with target goals that have the maps? It's Win/Win for PGI because they get the cash in advance and they don't have to invest the significant resources for the sale pack up front e.g. Mech packs.

Or do something like sell X number of a special cockpit item for the different map tiers. That way the supporters get something unique for supporting it and it doesn't require too much in resources to create the item used for the funding - e.g. most of the money goes to the map development.

Obviously we would want to see time lines of the deliverable for when the maps would be ready and either way the maps get released for everyone. Ends up being sort of a founders program for map development.

[maxdest]

EgoSlayer, on 12 September 2014 - 01:25 PM, said:

I see where your idea is going - but why even tie it to some other deliverable that consumes a lot of resources like Mechs?

/snip

Good ideas... my reasoning below.

Putting on my marketing hat here, it is a lot easier to sell a pack of themed content (you might even get some free press) rather than a feature patch tied to sales of non themed items.

Also, my bet is that we are going to keep on getting mech packs anyway, so as a community, it would be better for all if they are more than just mechs.

I want to see this game succeed, not just be death-match on ten maps with 300 mechs.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

KamikazeRat, on 11 September 2014 - 04:22 PM, said:

oh man, read...this has already been said, and then shot down, read.... then comment....how hard is that?


anyway, i like the idea of promised goods with set values of mech pack sales. but from what it seems like they plan on churning out these things at the best rate they can anyway(after CW of course) and then it goes back to the problem of what if you don't want maps but you want more game modes, you put your money into these mech packs, cause you want the mechs too, and your "bonus" is maps you couldnt care less about.

better idea is XenonCx's idea, when you buy MC, a vote pops up, "check next to the project or projects you want to see" that way, you can vote with your wallet, no ambiguity. no forum polls that can be biased. the things the majority of paying players want is the next focus. they could even balance it per player, or per dollar. or have some ratio of the two.

Already said and shot down huh?

Battlefield 3/4 is my argument against this.

I've had instance with friends where I've had BF3 Premium, and they did not [especially after they did a limited release of BF3 for free.] My friends could not access the expansion packs, and were not willing to throw 40 bucks at premium to get the expanded content. Meaning that if we were on a full expansions server, when the map flopped to an expansion map, I could not play with my friend, Which this means 1 or more less players in that server.

Expansion packs work absolutely fine in the singleplayer environment, but in Multiplayer, when you're locking off entire swaths of content[maps] from your free playerbase, in a F2P game. That causes too much of a disparity. I've seen it with shooters that utilize expansion packs, I've been on both sides of it [I remember WaW back when some of the new mappacks came out on 360 and I couldn't access them because I didn't have the cash to get those packs, and people in my group had them, it was always frustrating for everyone involved.]

So no, it has not been "disproven." You simply want it all in one solid pack, and that's just not how F2P games work.

Edit: So apparently you're arguing "Free" release to EVERYONE for this content, just in staggered releases.

Which is fine... STO does this and it works wonderfully.

The problem comes if you're wanting people to pay for this content. Which is, frankly, what it sounded like originally in the OP.

Edited by Flash Frame, 12 September 2014 - 02:34 PM.

[headbasher]

Does the model need to change? Yes.

But not this way.

[DAYLEET]

Naduk, on 11 September 2014 - 10:33 PM, said:

do you know what happens when you are a basic member with no map packs and your trying to play with your friend who is a Premium member ?
the both players can ONLY play on vanilla maps if they want to play together

this is A boring for the Premium player who wants to enjoy new shiny content when it comes out
and B mega frustrating to the basic player who just wants to play with his friends

you can take that and shove it up your god damn nose it has NO PLACE IN MECHWARRIOR

Im sorry but maybe A your premium friend is a selfishasshole and B most people gravitate around few map they enjoy. Id kill for another Strike at Karkland in BF4. Seriously if you cant fix the conundrum that is playing with friends with different xpac, BF4 might be too complicated for you to play to begin with.

[Quxudica]

DAYLEET, on 12 September 2014 - 09:30 PM, said:

Im sorry but maybe A your premium friend is a selfishasshole and B most people gravitate around few map they enjoy. Id kill for another Strike at Karkland in BF4. Seriously if you cant fix the conundrum that is playing with friends with different xpac, BF4 might be too complicated for you to play to begin with.

Warhammer 40k Space Marine sold maps and game modes as DLC, know what happened? Queue times for both old and new content got higher, because the player pool was split artificially. Some modes became virtually abandoned and some maps never played.

Maps and Game Modes should never be sold, ever, in a competitive title. It does bad things to the community, it hurts everyone who plays the game, and it's morally dubious for the dev's since it can be seen as exploitative. Want to play with your friends? gotta fork over that cash. Want to stay competitive? Better fork over that cash right away so you can learn those maps.

Nothing good comes from this type of model. Plus, on pc, there was a time when maps were just free content as a matter of course. It contributed to keeping the online community alive and happy, and those were titles that didn't try to nickle and dime you for things to make money.

CoD and Battlefield get away with the practice of $15 map packs for two reasons: Massive player bases's to offset the split, and a (primarily console based) audience that has been desensitized to DLC culture. If all you want is to make money and you have a big enough player base to sink the negative impacts than it's clearly worked amazingly, but it's not healthy for a game itself, especially not a niche game with a small base, and it's morality is thoroughly questionable.

Maps should always be free content.