21 replies to this topic

[Tristan Winter]

I think PGI missed the boat when it comes to cockpit items. Almost all of them are either very silly, or way too noisy and distracting. And of course, they're too expensive. But the price is kind of irrelevant as long as I don't want any of the cockpit items.

What do I mean by silly? Well, I don't think it's particularly cool to decorate a warmachine with christmas lights and put ice cream, a lava lamp and a Homer Simpson bobblehead on the dashboard. I don't like warhorns that play monkey screams or fart sounds. That's what I mean by silly.

If cockpit items cost something like 50-100 MC, I would probably get 1 or 2 cockpit items for most of my mechs. I don't want just a single 1000 MC cockpit item that I keep swapping between mechs.

Here's the kind of cockpit items I would pay for, if the price was right.

• A big handgun. Because riding to battle with a .50 caliber pistol is pretty cool. And when those Elementals cut through my cockpit glass, I'll be ready.
  
• A knife or similar weapon. I don't know what the Clanners use in BT lore. Klingon blades? Light sabers? Chainswords? Seeing the hilt and upper scabbard of a japanese katana or chinese dao would be pretty bad ass for Kurita, Liao and Jade Falcon.
  
• A Mechwarrior's helmet, both Clan and Inner Sphere version. Maybe it was taken from the bloody corpse of a fallen enemy or maybe it's your own helmet and you decided to pilot without a helmet like Nicolai Malthus to show off your glowing tattoos.
  
• Religious artifacts. I'm not religious. I don't know if Clanners are religious, but religion is a part of Inner Sphere lore. Christianity, judaism, buddhism, islam, hinduism, even norse religion. It's all there. I think it would be fairly cool to have a statue of St. Michael, or Buddha, or even Thor, the god of thunder. Maybe a little Shinto shrine. There are no atheists in fox holes or Locust cockpits.
  
• MW2 / Battletech style mech holograms. With a suitably low poly count.If they actually changed colour based on your mech's component health, I would pee and poop myself.
  
• Smoking cigar in ashtray. Didn't we use to have this? I can't find it anymore.
  
• Pin-up girl poster. Preferably drawn like it's the 1940's. Straddling an AC20 or doing dirty work in the mechbay.
  
• Polaroid photographs of various people and pets. Maybe even a picture of our homeplanet, Somerset.
  
• Mech statue with custom skin. Like the mech statues you can buy, but with different skin. Imagine unlocking a bronze Hunchback statue for 250 matches played with a given Hunchback variant.
  
• Ace of Spades card. Unlocked by completing the Ace of Spades achievement. Maybe even multiple Ace cards for 3, 5, 8 and (the impossible) 12 kills.

Cockpit items we already have, which are cool:

• 50. cal necklace
  
• Faction medallions
  
• Dog tags
  
• Kerensky holo statue. Damned shame this was only available to a few package buyers. We need more holo statues. Who would be appropriate? Katrina Steiner? Jerome Blake?

Edited by Nicolai Kabrinsky, 08 December 2014 - 10:46 PM.

[Karl Marlow]

Last time they had a poll I said I would pay money for a oscillating fan cockpit item.

I have not purchased this item as of yet.

[Tristan Winter]

ThomasMarik, on 08 December 2014 - 10:46 PM, said:

Last time they had a poll I said I would pay money for a oscillating fan cockpit item.

I have not purchased this item as of yet.

Tut tut. But really, I think a lot of people are in a situation where they bought a x amount of MC and then spent most of it on a mech or premium time, leaving them with a few hundred MC in their account. Unless they're in desperate need of GXP, there's not a whole lot to spend it on. And given the choice between buying a single cockpit item / color or saving it, I think a lot of people just end up saving the MCs for whenever they want to buy another hero mech or more premium time.

I know I'm spending a lot more on camo patterns now that you can buy single use patterns for 75-125 MC. That's a good price range for cosmetic items. Makes me want to buy them for all my mechs.

[CycKath]

*eyes go wide* ComStar stuff! Jerome Blake Holograms! ComStar hanging banner! ComStar dream catcher! ComStar medallions! Hardcover copy of the Word of Blake! Mini-standing HPG! You make I buy!

[Brody319]

A statue of my cockpit would be neat

[nitra]

all really good ideas. i prolly wouldnt buy any as im pretty much adverse to digital do nothings, but all really good ideas .

especially the mw2 damage model thingy if it showed damage in realtime then i would also most likely buy.

[IlmariArtificer]

Pretty nice ideas there OP.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Hula Girl and Classy Mech. I'd pay for those....and did.

I think the goofier stuff can help add charm. Except that Surat is a bit creepy. I can't bare to put him in a cockpit.

[Kodyn]

Fully agree with the OP here.

I would never in a million years pay a cent for any current cockpit items, unless they were ridiculously low priced, because I find about 98% of them to be obnoxious, and the remaining items aren't cool enough that I feel the need to get 'em.

If they had some more military-themed stuff, some items that would actually make sense to have in a mech cockpit, and lowered prices to be reasonable, I would gladly spend leftover MC from premium, camos, etc.

As it is, I save spare change MC til I can add it into a larger amount to get camo/premium, because the MC sinks in this game at the low end are sheer garbage.

Give me an ashtray, some bullet casings lying around, old-school photos, some folded maps in the corner, etc, things that I might realistically have in a cockpit, and I'll bite.

[Tyman4]

Mirror and razor.

Also display for rear-ward camera on one of the computers would be cool, especially if you had to look around the cockpit to see it. Skill based use from computer monitor, and practical item I would have installed on my mech for sure. (plus I hate seismic sensor...)

Tyman

[cat97628]

PGI is missing the boat on cockpit items because they do nothing. give me a small buff and I would pay for the silly things. The Phoenix package had this concept with LP bonuses. why not others small perks.

[Euri Yggdrasil]

I would pay for the fairy statue. Maybe new outfit / color palette to differentiate.
Maybe a little Maid to clean my cockpit?

[CocoaJin]

I'd pay for a napping cat. Or a puppy that stands up in the window and dashes back and forth, pawing on window at stuff below as we walk pass.

[Thunder Child]

I want a BIG RED BUTTON as a Standing Item, with a Warning underneath saying "DO NOT PRESS THIS BUTTON".

[The Wakelord]

I think a key thing here is that personal tastes are different. I like the halloween lights & Hula girl, for instance. But the stuff you listed? I wouldn't put them in if I got it for free. That's what we mean about personal taste!

Mirror & razor is a pretty swish idea, but I wouldn't pay more than 300MC myself for any cockpit item.

Edit: It is a bit funny people asking for vintage photos to make it more realistic... in 3050. That's the equivalent of modern tanks have exerpts of the Bayeux tapestry inside

Edited by The Wakelord, 03 January 2015 - 01:02 AM.

[Linkin]

Nicolai Kabrinsky, on 08 December 2014 - 10:45 PM, said:

I think PGI missed the boat when it comes to cockpit items. Almost all of them are either very silly, or way too noisy and distracting. And of course, they're too expensive. But the price is kind of irrelevant as long as I don't want any of the cockpit items.

What do I mean by silly? Well, I don't think it's particularly cool to decorate a warmachine with christmas lights and put ice cream, a lava lamp and a Homer Simpson bobblehead on the dashboard. I don't like warhorns that play monkey screams or fart sounds. That's what I mean by silly.

If cockpit items cost something like 50-100 MC, I would probably get 1 or 2 cockpit items for most of my mechs. I don't want just a single 1000 MC cockpit item that I keep swapping between mechs.

Here's the kind of cockpit items I would pay for, if the price was right.

• A big handgun. Because riding to battle with a .50 caliber pistol is pretty cool. And when those Elementals cut through my cockpit glass, I'll be ready.
  
• A knife or similar weapon. I don't know what the Clanners use in BT lore. Klingon blades? Light sabers? Chainswords? Seeing the hilt and upper scabbard of a japanese katana or chinese dao would be pretty bad ass for Kurita, Liao and Jade Falcon.
  
• A Mechwarrior's helmet, both Clan and Inner Sphere version. Maybe it was taken from the bloody corpse of a fallen enemy or maybe it's your own helmet and you decided to pilot without a helmet like Nicolai Malthus to show off your glowing tattoos.
  
• Religious artifacts. I'm not religious. I don't know if Clanners are religious, but religion is a part of Inner Sphere lore. Christianity, judaism, buddhism, islam, hinduism, even norse religion. It's all there. I think it would be fairly cool to have a statue of St. Michael, or Buddha, or even Thor, the god of thunder. Maybe a little Shinto shrine. There are no atheists in fox holes or Locust cockpits.
  
• MW2 / Battletech style mech holograms. With a suitably low poly count.If they actually changed colour based on your mech's component health, I would pee and poop myself.
  
• Smoking cigar in ashtray. Didn't we use to have this? I can't find it anymore.
  
• Pin-up girl poster. Preferably drawn like it's the 1940's. Straddling an AC20 or doing dirty work in the mechbay.
  
• Polaroid photographs of various people and pets. Maybe even a picture of our homeplanet, Somerset.
  
• Mech statue with custom skin. Like the mech statues you can buy, but with different skin. Imagine unlocking a bronze Hunchback statue for 250 matches played with a given Hunchback variant.
  
• Ace of Spades card. Unlocked by completing the Ace of Spades achievement. Maybe even multiple Ace cards for 3, 5, 8 and (the impossible) 12 kills.

Like it- especially: handgun, cigar ashtray, pin up, and ace of spades card.

[Davegt27]

ThomasMarik, on 08 December 2014 - 10:46 PM, said:

Last time they had a poll I said I would pay money for a oscillating fan cockpit item.

I have not purchased this item as of yet.

That’s the only item I have ever bought LOL

It’s in my Streak Wolf (too bad it does not transfer with the pilot after all you can on only pilot one Mech at a time)

[Smotty]

I would buy a "theb33f" warhorn.

Just saying...

[Tristan Winter]

The Wakelord, on 03 January 2015 - 12:58 AM, said:

I think a key thing here is that personal tastes are different. I like the halloween lights & Hula girl, for instance. But the stuff you listed? I wouldn't put them in if I got it for free. That's what we mean about personal taste!
Mirror & razor is a pretty swish idea, but I wouldn't pay more than 300MC myself for any cockpit item.
Edit: It is a bit funny people asking for vintage photos to make it more realistic... in 3050. That's the equivalent of modern tanks have exerpts of the Bayeux tapestry inside

I don't know a whole lot about the BT lore, but my impression is that it's pretty retro. It's not a realistic 3050 sci-fi universe, with the kind of technology one would expect in that era. It's also kind of like Warhammer 40,000 in that some old technology is lost and people don't understand it anymore, because reasons.

I still have paintings in my living room. I'd have a tapestry as well, if I could, even though they're "low tech". The only reason those art forms aren't more prevalent, is because they're extremely time-consuming and/or expensive. A polaroid photo (or any other kind of photograph) isn't.

I understand that people have different personal taste. I'm suggesting that PGI should cater to people with my taste as well. I'm not saying they should remove the Halloween lights from the game. Even though I wouldn't mind that for a second.

[El Bandito]

I remember recommending M1911 handgun, Winchester Rifle, Japanese katana (no Dracs should go without one), Pineapple grenade as cockpit items, all the way back in 2013. People said it was stupid idea.

So...what changed now?

Edited by El Bandito, 03 January 2015 - 07:20 AM.