16 replies to this topic

[Ashrahm]

There is only so many Mechs.
And if we stay true to lore, and whats legally allowed, we will eventually hit a wall.
now, before we go on, i'm stating viable mechs. minus the urban.
How will the company generate revenue.
will we need to start buying map packs, weapons, what ?

i don't see the sustained growth of profit from C-bill purchases and premium time. (grind isn't that bad for most to justify buying cbill outright vs the mechs themselves)

I bought a couple heroes and have a chunk of mc waiting for mechbays that i will buy once mechs i want come avail.
im just curious, if there is a plan. cause as of now, buying mech packs for hundreds and hundreds seems like a very niche purchase.
now i know i should research sarna and battle tech lore before i comment,
but if there is THAT many viable mechs that they can sustain revenue for (with mech packs), then i guess that makes me happy, but if there is not, what is the next thing being sold? anything cosmetic really doesn't help out other then for lulls, as the more colors u have the easier it is for me to spot you.
i mean will it go to a Path of exile moto, cosmetics only and gameplay focus free( minus outright buying a mech) but once you own it, that's it, your purchases stop, and the only thing they can count on and we all to hope for is new players to make more purchases while old and retaining players play with horns banners and colors .... (lets be honest only can have so much, welll,.... lol. )
i dunno what im saying but if you do chime in.
( you all know what i mean, i want mwo to be great and do well as i enjoy playing it, but i worry about how much the company makes and what it's plans are for future revenue, so that my current funds thrown at it are not wasted for a shut down game which happens quite often these days)

[Malcolm Vordermark]

Well there are hundreds of mechs and we have about 39 chassis, its taken a few years to get that many. Down the road they may advance the time line to allow more mechs, maybe they'll step up hero mech production. Its hard to say. But I'm thinking we're a few years away from running out of mechs.

Edited by Rouken, 07 October 2014 - 07:38 AM.

[FupDup]

If they are ever threatened with running out of robots to make grabdeals on, they might finally push the timeline forward and give us MOAR COWBELL/DAKKA finally.

[Chrithu]

In my view changing the way how premium time works and it's pricing would go miles to making the top selling item in the shop in the long run easily outgrowing any revenue gained from hero mech and pre-purchase campaigns.

I know that I would buy a 50% XP/CBill reward boost that lasts for a set amount of matches for every solo challenge weekend I take part in. Currnt premum tim ethough? Never bought and never will. It's a waste of money as you will at best be able to actually use 25% of the bonus time, the rest just goes to waste while you'Re offline.

[Alek Ituin]

There are hundreds of viable Mech chassis, and most of those chassis have 3+ variants, the average being about 5 variants IIRC.

There are plenty more weapons to be had, different vehicles could be included... You have Aerospace fighters, armored vehicles, Battle Armor, naval units, and space craft all included as part of the BT universe. Battlemechs are not the only thing in BT, and they certainly aren't the single most interesting things either.

[Eddrick]

FupDup, on 07 October 2014 - 07:39 AM, said:

If they are ever threatened with running out of robots to make grabdeals on, they might finally push the timeline forward and give us MOAR COWBELL/DAKKA finally.

Exactly. Even if they EVER do run out of canon Mechs. They can always creat new ones from scratch.

The possibility of new Mechs that don't exist in Battle Tech has been braught up before. They will do it. But, ONLY in the even that they actualy do run out of canon Mechs for the game.

[Revis Volek]

Jason Parker, on 07 October 2014 - 07:44 AM, said:

In my view changing the way how premium time works and it's pricing would go miles to making the top selling item in the shop in the long run easily outgrowing any revenue gained from hero mech and pre-purchase campaigns.

I know that I would buy a 50% XP/CBill reward boost that lasts for a set amount of matches for every solo challenge weekend I take part in. Currnt premum tim ethough? Never bought and never will. It's a waste of money as you will at best be able to actually use 25% of the bonus time, the rest just goes to waste while you'Re offline.

You can use it is 30 day blocks now....so this has been fixed a little. But just an FYI my unit of over 70 ALL have premium time ALL the time. Its a necessity for Private Lobbies and to speed up the grind when you are looking at 80 plus mech stables.

I would not hold you breath on them changing it any time soon, no offense but they sell plenty im sure.

To the OP, they have TONS AND TONS of Mechs, Aircraft, Infantry, Naval stuff that we most people dont even know exist. The mechs are the show stoppers but what we have currently is also a drop in the bucket compared to the total. New maps, New mechs, New weapons, Premium Time, early access. I will and do pay for all of the these things because i can. Its not just new guys keeping the game alive....why do you think the $500 gold mech packs came out and actually sold? New guys buying them? HAHA! i dont think so.....

Edited by DarthRevis, 07 October 2014 - 08:01 AM.

[Cion]

what would be interesting is favoring both the mech purchases AND a micro transactions approach. You buy mech packs OR get premium time were you can "rent mechs" you dont own for Cbills. Many people dont have enough dough to cough uyp $240 or $120 but can put $15-20 a month for "renting mechs". Premium time (not as it currently stands) is sustainable.

[Revis Volek]

Cion, on 07 October 2014 - 08:01 AM, said:

what would be interesting is favoring both the mech purchases AND a micro transactions approach. You buy mech packs OR get premium time were you can "rent mechs" you dont own for Cbills. Many people dont have enough dough to cough uyp $240 or $120 but can put $15-20 a month for "renting mechs". Premium time (not as it currently stands) is sustainable.

Then just buy MC and get one or two mechs, you dont have to buy the whole pack. Not many companies outside prepaid cellphones only charge you for minutes used. Most other games have the same model you buy it once you activate it the timer starts. This is a way to keep you in game and ups the chances statistically for you to make more micro purchases because you are spending more time in the game.

Edited by DarthRevis, 07 October 2014 - 08:06 AM.

[TyphonCh]

I'm wondering if CW ever gets rolling if they will allow us to supplement our attacks and defenses with choppers, tanks, fighters, etc from BT. They'll need to find a way to keep us interested and buying into this game
They were saying in the last vlog that purchaseable defenses were a topic of dicussion, but with the 24 hour rollover on planets or whatever, they didn't think people would be too happy with losing their purchases after the 24 hour period. Meh. I still feel like it could be implemented

Edited by Team Chevy86, 07 October 2014 - 08:12 AM.

[Cion]

DarthRevis, on 07 October 2014 - 08:03 AM, said:

Then just buy MC and get one or two mechs, you dont have to buy the whole pack. Not many companies outside prepaid cellphones only charge you for minutes used. Most other games have the same model you buy it once you activate it the timer starts. This is a way to keep you in game and ups the chances statistically for you to make more micro purchases because you are spending more time in the game.

hey man,
I have MC and several heroes. What im toying around with is the idea of promoting premium time because its a monthly revenue for PGI, and maybe promoting something like renting mechs will allow others to eventually spend more money on the game.

Edited by Cion, 07 October 2014 - 08:12 AM.

[TLBFestus]

How does WoT do it?
How does War Thunder do it?

Every game has limited "resources", in this case mechs, to produce and sell. What most of them absolutely depend on to keep going is a steady influx and turn-over of new players. Throw in a monthly sub that is actually worth something and you have the basic model.

That's why I don't get PGI's seeming lack of urgency to VASTLY improve the New player experience. Over the past few years they had basically disregarded the long-term life-blood of this game with only mild attention to anything revolving around new players.

I heard RB addressed this somewhat in the last town hall meeting but I'm not following his logic, or lack of interest, in allowing the new player to be given a new mech that they can THEN spend off their Cadet bonus money on fixing up, or adding another variant to pursue increased skill trees, etc.

They also need to find a solution that is better for smaller casual groups than getting thrown in to matches where 12 mans roll over them. No offense to those groups, but they are not helping increase the player base by stomping everything in their path. They need to put the 12 man queue back in and ban them from the current queue, perhaps waiting for CW to give them a home.

They simply don't belong in a queue with casual gamers. Their very nature, 12 people, relatively or highly organized and equipped, is the antithesis of attracting new players. Let the new guys get in, get their feet weet, and maybe then you can conveert them to "hardcore" players down the road.

Right now, they join up, get absolutely smashed and pasted if they do anything but solo, and then leave in frustration because they want to play with a few friends and have fun, and right now it can be difficult to convince them that the game is "fun" when they get "gg close" from veterans constantly.

I have suggested this a couple of times;

TLBFestus, on 07 September 2014 - 09:22 AM, said:

Yeah, no way that they would sell premium time in it's current form as an "only active when online" function. As someone pointed out that is 168 hours of game time for a week, and about 700 hours per month. Buy one month and you've got 700 hours to burn.

If they did that they would have to step up "Mechs for Sale" production to ludicrous levels (This..is ...a ....joke)!


Now.....if they wanted to offer different Premium time Options it could look like this;

• Regular Premium time as it currently exists, continual run down to zero in blocks of 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or 1 year
  
• "Online Only" Active Premium time which only runs when logged in. Naturally it would sell for the same price per block, but the hours you get would be drastically REDUCED.

Just for arguments sake, assume that the average player plays 2 hours a night, every night. That's 14 hours a week. On average there are 4.2 weeks in a month, which is 58.8 hours a month, or 705.6 hours a year.

Basing this on 25000 MC, for $100 (best deal) , meaning 250 MC per DOLLAR and then round everything to make it easy and they could sell "Online" Premium time for;

2 hours for 250 MC or $1 (equivalent to 1 day non-stop)

15 hours for 1850 MC or $7.50 (equivalent to 7 days non-stop)

60 hours for 7500 MC or $30 (equivalent to 1 month non-stop)

180 hours for 22,500 MC or $90 (equivalent to 3 months non-stop)

750 hours for 40,000 MC or $175 (equivalent to 1 year non-stop)

For the math geeks in the crowd, these are ROUGH figures based on 125 MC per Hour, based on 2 hours per day playing time, and then tweaked a little for "volume discount" effects.

I'm sure that these numbers would need some serious adjustment by someone with more math skills than I , but at least it puts things into some perspective and acts as a jumping off point for discussion.

Obviously I don't know if 2 hours per day is a good average or not, for some it will be too little and others too much, but therein lies the benefit of offering the option to buy it in the current "always active" blocks if you are a hardcore, live in your moms basement, wife divorces you and you don't even notice it kinda guy.

Assuming the numbers are tweaked correctly and they would need some good statistics, which I'm sure PGI has, to tweak them appropriately, they would not lose any money.

People would have MORE options, and PGI would likely have more income.

I don't know if the "math" is spot on or not, but it looks like a win-win scenario for the players and the game. I'd love to see RB address just WHY this wouldn't work, and if not how it could be tweaked to be viable.

Edited by TLBFestus, 07 October 2014 - 08:17 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Cion, on 07 October 2014 - 08:11 AM, said:

hey man,
I have MC and several heroes. What im toying around with is the idea of promoting premium time because its a monthly revenue for PGI, and maybe promoting something like renting mechs will allow others to eventually spend more money on the game.

Not a bad idea, IF, Trial Mechs pretty much cover that for now. Not all Chassis have trial versions, but with time. Why would anyone Rent when you can Trial for Free.

[Revis Volek]

Cion, on 07 October 2014 - 08:11 AM, said:

hey man,
I have MC and several heroes. What im toying around with is the idea of promoting premium time because its a monthly revenue for PGI, and maybe promoting something like renting mechs will allow others to eventually spend more money on the game.

Sorry i am not quite understanding you i guess....or maybe you are not getting me.

Trail mechs already serve that purpose so there is no reason to "rent" a mech. Also like i said, for $15-$20 rather then rent a mech just buy MC and BUY the mech then you own it. I dont see how what you are suggesting is any better then the current system.

Promoting Premium Time? I dont get what you even mean by that....

[Kassatsu]

Cion, on 07 October 2014 - 08:01 AM, said:

what would be interesting is favoring both the mech purchases AND a micro transactions approach. You buy mech packs OR get premium time were you can "rent mechs" you dont own for Cbills. Many people dont have enough dough to cough uyp $240 or $120 but can put $15-20 a month for "renting mechs". Premium time (not as it currently stands) is sustainable.

There are quite a few games that do similar systems, and as far as I can tell in any of them, it greatly boosts the premium/VIP/subscription purchases.

I definitely wouldn't mind being able to temporarily unlock 3 variants of any chassis for a week with full customization open (and either free changes, or give you 50-100% of your c-bills back once the week is up).

Or for the sake of simplicity, and to avoid potential c-bill exploits (and wasted time/effort fixing them), they could just copy/paste all of the weapons and such and add (VIP) versions of everything that cost nothing, but can only be mounted on rental mechs. These should not be useable in CW.

Also, why not MC discounts on premium players? It shouldn't be too hard to make it so that you have to have X amount of time activated, or Y remaining to be able to qualify for said discounts. This would only be to prevent people from buying a day of premium time and getting all of the discounts on stuff they want for next to nothing.

How about account 'tiers' that have a permanent (and relatively small) XP/CB gain increase? Maybe even have a high tier that allows private lobby limitations to be removed. Granted, most games that do this converted from subscription to F2P, but why not have a 1% bonus per tier of clan pack, 2% per tier of founder packs, and 1% for phoenix (plus another 2% for saber). This should stack, and not have a cap. Why? At the rates I just gave, you'd have paid $100 for an 8% boost as a legendary founder, $120 for a 6% boost for phoenix + saber, $240 for another 8% with the clan pack, and another $120 still for wave 2 and 4%. The total is what, 26%? And for... A lot of money over the span of several YEARS.

And since I'm already feeling entitled after that last suggestion, gold mech owners should get an extra 5-10%.

EDIT: So assuming you're a legendary founder that bought the highest possible packages every time plus a gold pack, and gold gives an additional 10%, you'd have spent $840 for a permanent 36% c-bill/XP boost over the past I don't know, three years? Heck, don't have it stack with hero/champion mechs so it's "fair". Only the higher applies if you're piloting one - Heroes would definitely still have a purpose beyond their better (or so much worse) hardpoints.

Edited by Kassatsu, 07 October 2014 - 09:57 AM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Rouken, on 07 October 2014 - 07:36 AM, said:

Well there are hundreds of mechs and we have about 39 chassis, its taken a few years to get that many. Down the road they may advance the time line to allow more mechs, maybe they'll step up hero mech production. Its hard to say. But I'm thinking we're a few years away from running out of mechs.

Initially, I thought hte timeline in game was equal to our current time line...as in 2015 will equal 3051, 2016 will be 3052 and so on....so yeah, id say we arent close to running out of mechs.

and to the OP

Funding? I would drop 500 bucks on a well made coop campaign vs some AI on randomly generated missions. Pair it up with a mission and map editor and ill give them another 500 and enjoy countless hours creating new maps and missions.

I have created my own mod in Men of war using it's editor, my campaign now has like 16 missions, entirely new, fictious army and storyline along with new modded units. been heaps of fun to created and play. I would love to do the same ot MWO. Cuz really...TDM on 8 maps with poor performance and WoT like gameplay is just boring....

Edited by LordKnightFandragon, 07 October 2014 - 10:27 AM.

[Kassatsu]

LordKnightFandragon, on 07 October 2014 - 10:27 AM, said:

Initially, I thought hte timeline in game was equal to our current time line...as in 2015 will equal 3051, 2016 will be 3052 and so on....so yeah, id say we arent close to running out of mechs.

and to the OP

Funding? I would drop 500 bucks on a well made coop campaign vs some AI on randomly generated missions. Pair it up with a mission and map editor and ill give them another 500 and enjoy countless hours creating new maps and missions.

I have created my own mod in Men of war using it's editor, my campaign now has like 16 missions, entirely new, fictious army and storyline along with new modded units. been heaps of fun to created and play. I would love to do the same ot MWO. Cuz really...TDM on 8 maps with poor performance and WoT like gameplay is just boring....

Didn't you get the memo? Allowing players to create their own content steals revenue from DLC that developers would have never made or sold in the first place, and it definitely does NOT boost sales of the game so people can play some good mods for it.

Then again... Add a co-op campaign (new non-mech vehicles in it? whaaaat), at the very least do some basic custom mission system like what war thunder does and bam. More MC purchases. To be fair, "bam" is mis-leading because that would take weeks, if not month, while delaying other updates. Who cares about balance - It's co-op, not professional competitive gaming.