222 replies to this topic

[Threat Doc]

Kyrie, on 20 January 2015 - 01:26 PM, said:

The focus is on stabilizing the current iteration well through 2015. The complexity that I am after might not be in the cards at all, unfortunately.

From all that I have heard, it is not. Unfortunately, I don't believe it will be until someone with money, and who actually cares for BattleTech, makes two versions of a game similar to MWO -one focused around the kiddies being able to get their robot stompy on, and the other focused around the veterans and the lore of the game, working through a time-line, a true in-game economy, including salvage and contracts IAW Mercenary's Handbook and MH: 3055, a single 'Mech per person that can be modified over time, time handled to allow a true strategic function, etc., etc., ad nauseum that this game is NOT.

[Kyrie]

Kay Wolf, on 20 January 2015 - 01:34 PM, said:

From all that I have heard, it is not. Unfortunately, I don't believe it will be until someone with money, and who actually cares for BattleTech, makes two versions of a game similar to MWO -one focused around the kiddies being able to get their robot stompy on, and the other focused around the veterans and the lore of the game, working through a time-line, a true in-game economy, including salvage and contracts IAW Mercenary's Handbook and MH: 3055, a single 'Mech per person that can be modified over time, time handled to allow a true strategic function, etc., etc., ad nauseum that this game is NOT.

If I were to win the powerball lotttery tonight, I would propose almost everything you suggest (with additions) minus the one mech per person thing.

From a business standpoint, incorporating "gotta collect'm all" is irresistible. I would, however, do it as part of Unit Logistics and the creation of logistical CW assets such as Lances. Buying mechs to create your Lances for deployment into CW to create defenses as well as attacks, and buying for your Unit as shared assets.

In general I am advocating that logistics can exist for single players, and Units can be created by players joining their logistical assets together. Or by one guy deciding to buy everything necessary to set one up.

[Threat Doc]

Kyrie, on 20 January 2015 - 02:09 PM, said:

If I were to win the powerball lotttery tonight, I would propose almost everything you suggest (with additions) minus the one mech per person thing.

That would mostly be for the hardcore mode; as I said, two games: one for the bashers, twitchers, and collectors, the other for the veterans and those looking for the depth this game never will provide.

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From a business standpoint, incorporating "gotta collect'm all" is irresistible. I would, however, do it as part of Unit Logistics and the creation of logistical CW assets such as Lances. Buying mechs to create your Lances for deployment into CW to create defenses as well as attacks, and buying for your Unit as shared assets.

I wouldn't mind seeing something like each person being able to become a Lance Leader of the 'Mechs, they collect, given an appropriately complex AI. Lance Management for the Lance Leader sounds like something that is both indicative of prior MechWarrior Computer games, and fun from the standpoint of someone who loves logistics. Heck, don't stop at a Lance... once the player collects 11 'Mechs or more, they can form a full Company, set their Lance Leaders, and direct them from an interface similar to the current BattleGrid, or from any new iteration of it PGI may develop.

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In general I am advocating that logistics can exist for single players, and Units can be created by players joining their logistical assets together. Or by one guy deciding to buy everything necessary to set one up.

I love this idea, and it might give me something to focus my thinking on, tonight, when I'm off to sleep.

[Kyrie]

What I'm really referring to is the possibility of developing an RTS system for CW. While taking a break from MWO, I stumbled a few months ago unto this game: www.heroesandgenerals.com


In brief, they have two modes: "staged" for the casual crowd, and "campaign". In campaign, you build up your logistical power on the map by either grinding (pretty hard) or by buying the key logistical asset known as an "assault team" and the officers to command them. An assault-team has the tickets that are used by players who fight in the action-game, and determines what resources they can use for that battle.


Translating the key concept from that game into the BT universe would be quite easy, and would be similar to what we had in Kesmai's MPBT (GEnie version circa 1992).


For example, we can first create the most basic "visible" asset: Lances. A lance has capacity for One Drop-deck, 4 mechs. Thus, in a nod to PGI's Drop-deck concept, 1 Lance becomes 1 Player (at a minimum). While deviating from canon, this is still, IMHO, workable. When a player sends his Lance to a planet, he is creating one ticket of 4 mechs to be used to fight that battle either on defense or attack.


Lances should earn XP, and have options for various upgrades. Upgrades include: tonnage limits for the drop-deck slot, and perhaps the option to unlock additional drop-deck slots (for more player capacity per lance).


When a player commits his mech to a drop-deck, and sends that drop-deck into a Lance, he has an opportunity-cost that is missing from the current CW logic; a cost that is sorely needed. One that justifies having a large mech collection. ;-)

Edited by Kyrie, 20 January 2015 - 02:35 PM.

[Threat Doc]

Kyrie, on 20 January 2015 - 02:34 PM, said:

For example, we can first create the most basic "visible" asset: Lances. A lance has capacity for One Drop-deck, 4 mechs. Thus, in a nod to PGI's Drop-deck concept, 1 Lance becomes 1 Player (at a minimum). While deviating from canon, this is still, IMHO, workable. When a player sends his Lance to a planet, he is creating one ticket of 4 mechs to be used to fight that battle either on defense or attack.

That doesn't deviate all that much from Canon, but I would prefer to have the AI 'Mechs available... perhaps either mode... Drop Deck or AI Deck, as it were, could be chosen by the attacker and defender prior to launch.

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Lances should earn XP, and have options for various upgrades. Upgrades include: tonnage limits for the drop-deck slot, and perhaps the option to unlock additional drop-deck slots (for more player capacity per lance).

Okay, so you mean I could unlock the ability for a friend of mine to join me in the drops? Or, do you mean building additional Lances?

To clarify... is your Lance composed of four Drop Decks (16 'Mechs), or is your Lance one Drop Deck of four 'Mechs?

[Kyrie]

Kay Wolf, on 20 January 2015 - 03:17 PM, said:

That doesn't deviate all that much from Canon, but I would prefer to have the AI 'Mechs available... perhaps either mode... Drop Deck or AI Deck, as it were, could be chosen by the attacker and defender prior to launch.

Okay, so you mean I could unlock the ability for a friend of mine to join me in the drops? Or, do you mean building additional Lances?

To clarify... is your Lance composed of four Drop Decks (16 'Mechs), or is your Lance one Drop Deck of four 'Mechs?

My proposal is that your Lance begins as 1 Drop Deck, and you have a choice of upgrade trees that are unlocked by the Lance earning XP. The Lance earns XP based on what the players do with the Lance in each battle.

The first upgrade tree applies to the original drop-deck slot unlocked: Add more tonnage, in 5t increments. So, for instance, your Lance begins with capacity to do a Scout mission (4 light mechs). By adding 5t, you can now mix in one medium into that, and so on.

The second upgrade tree is "number of drop decks", and is the harder one to unlock. This does provide for having more players play simultaneously, or also for you to have more logistical assets in place to play yourself (as in, for instance, PvE mode that Russ has confirmed is coming eventually).

These two trees apply to each Lance you own individually, that is -- each Lance has its own progression path. The Number of Lances you own is controlled by your military rank.

Edited by Kyrie, 20 January 2015 - 03:25 PM.

[Kyrie]

On your point of AIs, I like the idea of AIs if PvE is fully implemented in CW. For instance, I would like to have it so that the AI-drones that people face is determined by the Lances placed on defense.

For example, when it comes time to generate a mission-table and rewards for solo players, the defending forces are literally created from the assets players have placed on the planet. In that way we can have 4v4 for PvE, with players determining how "hard" the mission is for the enemy by placing stronger Lances on that planet, creating in turn an opportunity-cost in attack v defense.

[Threat Doc]

Honestly, that all actually sounds like it would be fun, at least for a guy like me, who prefers management and finds it to be much easier to manage digits than people who don't understand military-style organization or functions, and who prefer to chase after their own ideals of what a military organization should be rather than trusting the established process and EARNING their way to having the ability to help make those changes.

Sorry for the run-on.

Edited by Kay Wolf, 20 January 2015 - 06:07 PM.

[Mark McTavish]

Kay Wolf, on 20 January 2015 - 06:06 PM, said:

Honestly, that all actually sounds like it would be fun, at least for a guy like me, who prefers management and finds it to be much easier to manage digits than people who don't understand military-style organization or functions, and who prefer to chase after their own ideals of what a military organization should be rather than trusting the established process and EARNING their way to having the ability to help make those changes.

Sorry for the run-on.

I have to disagree. Id much rather run with a group of 4 to 12 friends, filling AI where neccisary. While this might be a miltiary game, it is after all a game, and games get inffinitly better with friends.

[CimaGarahau]

Mark McTavish, on 04 February 2015 - 08:03 PM, said:

I have to disagree. Id much rather run with a group of 4 to 12 friends, filling AI where neccisary. While this might be a miltiary game, it is after all a game, and games get inffinitly better with friends.

You might be right here but in case of this game here you also have to consider that you get the appropriate opponent in terms of skill. If you are not trained well with your mates you will be smashed !

[delushin]

LF video log.

[Threat Doc]

So, Dev Blog #10 was 15 November... can we get #11, please?

[Crazy Irishmen]

map looks great cant wait to get back online and check it out.

[Clownwarlord]

Nov ... 2014 was the last Dev Vlog ... now it is March 2015 and still no new dev vlog. I like how they do some of the things with NGNG, but still they need to have something for here on mwomercs for informing populace other then that what they do with ngng. They use to do Ask the Devs, now they stopped doing Dev Vlogs, and the only relations they seem to have with the populace is their pick and choose questions for Town Hall. After that you might say Devs and Beers which also NGNG does with the help of PGI, but come on they really need to do something more.

This is not to say the work that NGNG is bad, because it is actually really good content; but NGNG should not be the only source for PGI to get new development information to the community.

[Kidd Sykes]

I just need to say that WAY too much time has been spent on making the game pretty and not nearly enought time spent on gameplay. I'm not talking about balancing hit boxes and all that either, I need something thats more than a glorified WOT, its been done, why are you wasting my time? I want MECHWARRIOR! Dropships, VTOL's, Tanks and other vehicles on field, OBJECTIVES! not just go in and blow everthing up, thats boring. I remember the missions in the old games, with the bad graphics, I played the lesser graphic ones because they were more interesting! The rockem sockem nonsense was called instant action and was a signifigantly smaller and separately distinguished part of the game done last. Mechwarriors were typically sent in to support convoys, clear LZ's for dropships, support tank and infantry lines, recon and scatter enemy units while the tanks and lrm trucks reigned them in. not 12 on 12 skirmishes that were only for the sake of murdering other mech pilots (except the clans who were always known to be insane.) Look back to the old activision and microprose campaigns and see what you can do, also I suggest PGI takes a look at Star Trek Online and see how they built thier game. I could see MWO go far if it set itself up a little less like WOT in a COD atmosphere. I know, we're relying on the players to make it closer to that style but lets face it, the herd doesnt know what it wants and has no patience to figure it out. its on you to make them do cereberal activities that actually require more than just killing the red blips on your radar. I'm to the point where I'm ready to boycott MWO, advocating to those around me that its a game for cat herders and trolls and that the smarter you are, the less you'll play because this is not mechwarrior that everyone knows. there's no roles to be played, there's no story to be had, just a bunch of idiots running around like... well... CAT HERDERS! I've had opportunity to be engaged in the AFFS and other organizations within the game, but still the forsight in those groups is so limited to the next drop being a meta build that its not fun at all. I have already gone as far as finding open source mechwarrior games to play in liu of this because it isnt going anywhere. CW is a joke, dropping 4 times in 1 round of combat does not mean it now has purpose. Conquest has more depth as a game mode and would be more practical in a larger scale warfare setting. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" lol make the game not pointless please.

[Threat Doc]

Kidd Sykes, on 12 March 2015 - 09:02 AM, said:

EVERYTHING I WANT IN A MECHWARRIOR GAME!

Kidd, you have it dead-on-balls-accurate, and there are so many of us who have been advocating for more than Monkey-in-the-Middle for so very long, it's stupid. I have taken two breaks from this game, now, roughly fourteen months total, since I signed on the day PGI made the announcement on Facebook in October 2011. SCREW THE TWITCHERS, PGI, GIVE THE REST OF US THE GAME WE HAVE PAID FOR, AND HAVE EARNED!

[Rebas Kradd]

Kay Wolf, on 12 March 2015 - 03:02 PM, said:

Kidd, you have it dead-on-balls-accurate, and there are so many of us who have been advocating for more than Monkey-in-the-Middle for so very long, it's stupid. I have taken two breaks from this game, now, roughly fourteen months total, since I signed on the day PGI made the announcement on Facebook in October 2011. SCREW THE TWITCHERS, PGI, GIVE THE REST OF US THE GAME WE HAVE PAID FOR, AND HAVE EARNED!

I'm all for new and more interesting objectives and missions, but dismissing a necessary player base gets your argument nowhere.

PGI was smart to develop the game they did. Start by appealing to a wider demographic of players (what you so dismissively call "twitchers"), let them just drop and start fighting, and build more interesting gameplay from there. It's slow progress to be sure, and this game design team is seemingly too heavy a mixture of conservative and unimaginative to produce anything really interesting (Gauss cannons? Give us a SPACEPORT to capture!), but we're getting there.

MWO would have been dead a year ago had they launched with the vision they originally discussed. The only question is whether they knew that BEFORE they promised it, or afterwards and made an adjustment.

Relevant question: TINA, WHEN'S THE NEXT VLOG???!!!

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 31 March 2015 - 09:18 AM.

[Threat Doc]

Rebas Kradd, on 31 March 2015 - 06:23 AM, said:

I'm all for new and more interesting objectives and missions, but dismissing a necessary player base gets your argument nowhere.

They were not a necessary player base until the long-term player base would have been established. The long-term player base were the veterans of the board game and the computer games that PGI took a massive **** on; we paid for this game to be what they said they were going to do -notice I did not say promise- and they turded us out like dreamers we are. The original leagues started with the hardcore player base, and we built it from there, and it was good... really, really good; I know, I started in '97 and I was there. Until MechWarrior III: Pirate's Moon, the BattleTech/MechWarrior community was something to be proud of; but, then, the useless ass twitchers dropped in and started ruining it for everyone, because MechWarrior IV, and the leagues from that point on, catered to them.

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PGI was smart to develop the game they did. Start by appealing to a wider demographic of players (what you so dismissively call "twitchers"), let them just drop and start fighting, and build more interesting gameplay from there.

This is where you are so wrong that I am physically ill about it. Literally, at this point, I could puke over just how bass ackwards you are! I do not dismissively call anyone anything, they are twitch gamers, the ONLY reason they're good is because they can point-and-click better than most of us who would actually like to enjoy the game for what it is SUPPOSED to be, not this criminal sham it's been turned into. You start with the strong base-line, the people that are going to STICK WITH YOU and SUPPORT YOU, and you let THEM build your community up, bring in, teach and train the twitchers to play like people with brains rather than idiots with bits, blowing other bits up. The twitchers are also called that because the next shiny thing that gets their beady little eyes fixated on it is where they will go next, especially without having a reason to maintain an interest in this game.

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It's slow progress to be sure, and this game design team is seemingly too heavy a mixture of conservative and unimaginative to produce anything really interesting (Gauss cannons? Give us a SPACEPORT to capture!), but we're getting there.

No. Within the next couple of VLOGs or 'Mechs, Devs, and Beer, or Town Hall, expect Russ or Bryan to express that there will be no objective-based warfare. We were told, in September 2013, that we were going to get a robust Merc Unit Management system; what's there, now, is a complete and total joke, and Russ -two Town Hall's back, I think it was- renege'd on that, expressing that there would be no further Merc Unit Management development. When it comes to being too conservative and their having zero imagination, I couldn't agree with you more. However, lets examine what really happened to all those awesome things so many of us tipped money into the hat for between October 2011 and January 2012, shall we?

How about a terribly DECREASING -despite their doth protesting too much to the contrary- population -AHEM: twitchers gone onto shinier things, and BattleTech and MechWarrior veterans who no longer give three shits about this game because, YET AGAIN, we got screwed? How about just barely enough money going into their coffers, now, because twitchers don't buy things for "lame" games they wanted to try out once and never again, and because of that population decrease coupled with the decreasing faith in this company, and in this game, that's even less money for paying folks.

PGI can change my perception on this by PUBLISHING stats on population, money and accomplishments.

Oh, in February 2014 it looked like PGI were turning the corner, especially with preparing for the announcement of the separation from, and imminent death of IGP, and with the introduction of some tools that appeared to be baseline for the things that would have kept this game BattleTech, but then they turned from those, and **** on all of us, again.

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MWO would have been dead a year ago had they launched with the vision they originally discussed.

Again, you are absolutely backwards with this statement. If PGI had done the things they said they were going to do, from Dev Blog 0 forward -and I'm not talking the Dev Blogs that were rewritten halfway through last year to reflect any adjusted mission statements- they would not only have a massive veteran community still hear -rather than thinking they'd been robbed and had their throats cut in the process- but that massive veteran community would have been working overtime to recruit and train new folks into the game. If you want to talk about being dismissive, then you need to listen to yourself talk, because the veterans would have made this game top-shelf triple-A material, with time and money involved, and PGI could actually think about moving on with plans for e-Sports. Unfortunately, the "community" is so small, now, even with new people joining daily, finding out this isn't the game for them -no free training grounds, no one to take them under their wing and show them around, no program to keep people introduced to the BattleTech universe, no decent tutorial's, even (BY THE COMPANY, NOT THIRD PARTIES)-, and then subsequently leaving, that not only is e-Sports out of the question, but I wouldn't doubt it these servers are going to be in one of two states by the end of this year: shut down, or so full of non-paying twitchers that PGI will drive itself out of business with the upkeep, along.

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The only question is whether they knew that BEFORE they promised it, or afterwards and made an adjustment.

If they knew before, then they're thieves, plain and simple; if that is the case, they made highly unethical business decisions and knew, also, that they were going to be robbing those of us of our money by making mis-statements in such a way they seemed as fact. Alternately, if they made the decisions after, as a result of IGPs meddling, then it's because they were too ignorant to really do what needed to be done. I swear, every time I hear Russ cry about the engineers throwing a fit, I want to see him grow a pair and tell them to get it done, or get the **** out!

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Relevant question: TINA, WHEN'S THE NEXT VLOG???!!!

Good luck getting an answer, Kimosabe.

PGI needs to do one of two things, here... they either need to seek someone to sell the property off to, or they need to draft a new and true plan to rebuild this game into what it should have been in the first place... BattleTech, not this maggot infested joke they have, now. I want my BattleTech/MechWarrior community; I want to recruit twitchers and teach them the way it should be done; and, I want a game that can actually call itself BattleTech. I won't see it, and that makes me sad.

[Rebas Kradd]

Kay Wolf, on 31 March 2015 - 10:56 AM, said:

No. Within the next couple of VLOGs or 'Mechs, Devs, and Beer, or Town Hall, expect Russ or Bryan to express that there will be no objective-based warfare. We were told, in September 2013, that we were going to get a robust Merc Unit Management system; what's there, now, is a complete and total joke, and Russ -two Town Hall's back, I think it was- renege'd on that, expressing that there would be no further Merc Unit Management development. When it comes to being too conservative and their having zero imagination, I couldn't agree with you more. However, lets examine what really happened to all those awesome things so many of us tipped money into the hat for between October 2011 and January 2012, shall we?

If you invested money on early design concepts, that's on you. Such things are as changeable as the weather in video game design. I will say that I believe they changed their course after the original commitments, based on little things like finding a "scouting information incoming" buried amongst the unused sound files in the game.

Kay Wolf, on 31 March 2015 - 10:56 AM, said:

I swear, every time I hear Russ cry about the engineers throwing a fit, I want to see him grow a pair and tell them to get it done, or get the **** out!

No. That doesn't work. See, this is why I'm glad people like you aren't in the video game business. JUST GET IT DONE isn't a mature approach. That's the rallying cry of hated and ineffective bosses. You have realities to deal with, like a small staff, established skill sets, and a narrow cash flow. Be frustrated all you want, it doesn't change the reality.

Kay Wolf, on 31 March 2015 - 10:56 AM, said:

...but that massive veteran community would have been working overtime to recruit and train new folks into the game. If you want to talk about being dismissive, then you need to listen to yourself talk, because the veterans would have made this game top-shelf triple-A material...

This just isn't how it works. It's the principle of wider vs narrower appeal...the former almost always makes more money, as much as the latter gripes about it. It's why that hack Michael Bay is such a rich man.

People's complaints about MWO almost always rely on the assumption that the veterans would be absolutely showering PGI with money and new recruits had they gotten their way. It's a poorly thought-out assumption. I wonder how many of those new recruits would be staying with dynamics like repair and rearm (which even other BT regulars on this board didn't want), direct involvement by PGI in player-led groups, spending months grinding up for anything beyond a medium mech, MWLL-style maps that take ten minutes to commence actual combat, and other such. For all PGI's slipups in some areas, it's made the game much more accessible in others. And typically, for every devoted IP fan, there are about ten casuals out there providing much more cash flow. PGI would be suicidal to rely on a minority of gamers for their livelihood. You have to find a balance.

The fact that YOUR friends list is smaller doesn't mean the community is smaller. That's just such a weak assumption. It also doesn't take into account that a lot of people don't permanently leave, that they can (and do) come back at any time, and that gamers in general are constantly moving back and forth. That's why it's hard for me to take your chicken little cries seriously. You vets always think you're a game's only hope.

It also fails to take into consideration the real reasons people leave: core gameplay issues. New player experience, mechlab, limited gamemodes, lack of commitment via single-player or co-op missions...very basic stuff that has little to do with Battletech and much more to do with simple gamer gratification. That's why people don't stick around. Fix that stuff (which is what they're doing right now) and you've got a much larger player base than what would be accomplished by bringing back R&R or whatever it is you "hardcore" people want...you all disagree anyway, so it's hard for me to keep track.

Kay Wolf, on 31 March 2015 - 10:56 AM, said:

I do not dismissively call anyone anything

You call people "useless" and "idiots" and then have the gall to say you're not being dismissive? Are you actually serious? I'm done with you.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 31 March 2015 - 03:28 PM.

[Tarogato]

Kay Wolf, on 31 March 2015 - 04:14 PM, said:

...

Rebas Kradd, on 31 March 2015 - 03:11 PM, said:

...

@Kay: You seem to not understand that it makes little sense from a development standpoint to cater toward a stagnant audience. Sure, there is a playerbase remaining from the old BT and MW2-3 times, but it's not growing, it's only dwindling as time goes on. In fact, it will never grow. It makes more sense to cater development toward where more opportunity lies, if that means it is your so-called "twitchers", then so be it. You can't stay afloat when you only have so many boards to nail over the leaks, and PGI needs more boards and nails.

Also, you certainly did refer to them dismissively and your attitude reeked of disdain.


@Rebas: What you're ignoring is that this game exists because of people like the Founders, many of whom are die-hard BT nerds or old time MW league players. While I don't think this game should should backtrack and rebuild itself according to what a few people wish it was, I also don't think it would be smart to completely ignore that old pre-existing playerbase. If you can appease them, well... first of all they're mostly whales; second, they have more BT/etc friends they can bring back; third, nobody can praise the IP like they can to put it in positive light; and fourth, many of them right now are still enemies of PGI. They don't like what PGI has done with this IP and some of them are still doing everything in their power to stomp MWO into the ground and ruin its reputation. We can't ignore that.

---

Between the two of you, we need to meet in the middle. You can't keep arguing so venomously about something you both love so much. We're all here because we love this game, and we need to come to agreements instead of attacking one another.

Oh yeah, and...

Dev Vlog #11, plz. <3