48 replies to this topic

[Gabriel Amarell]

For those who don’t want to read the exposition I highlighted the main point of the post below

It was 3 years ago in mid 2009 that Piranha’s games released the first trailer for what has become Mechwarrior Online. When I found the video on IGN I began to scour the internet for information and found only rumors; rumors that Mechwarrior creator Jordan Weisman had negotiated licensing or perhaps ownership rights to the electronic component of the Battletech intellectual property from Microsoft; creator of the excellent Mechwarrior 4 titles as well as the disastrous Mechassault. It was of course at this time that the most severe recession of the last 80 years gripped the U.S. and as funding for game projects evaporated rumors resurfaced regarding legal issues surrounding the use of certain iconic imagery Mechwarrior fan’s have clandestinely dubbed the Un-Seen. Amidst the recession and rumors Mechwarrior vanished once more into the abyss.

It was not until late 2011 that I discovered that the project had survived; if not in its original form, and that it had indeed moved forward beyond the preliminary negotiation stages and into the development cycle. Since that time I have been following the development of Mechwarrior Online at first with much skepticism. I worried that the trend simplifying games in an attempt to make them accessible to a wider audience would result in another “Arcade” style title like Mechassault; and that the delicate balance needed to make each weapon and weight class viable would prove untenable. Over the last 6 months I have watched the Piranha Staff do what I dared not hope could be done, what I thought impossible, I watched them do justice to what is probably my favorite intellectual property of all time, Mechwarrior.

The weapons systems look more balanced than I could have hoped for, solutions were offered for issues that have plagued the electronic media iterations of this franchise for 20 years. The art design is phenomenal, the mechs looks better than they have every looked, as do the weapon effects and environments. Piranha and Infinite Game Publishing have turned my skepticism and doubts into hope that Mechwarrior Online might just be the title we all hoped it could be.

That said one doubt lingers in my mind, one remaining question to be answered; money. Development of a AAA title in today’s world is a multimillion dollar endeavor, one upon which the fate of studios are publishers are wagered. Like all of you I am perfectly willing to financially support a developer that labors to produce a title I find worthy, and IMO Mechwarrior Online certainly looks to be worthy, but I realize that words are empty and money talks. So P.G.I. let’s talk.

For me personally I abhor the idea of using real world currency to purchase in-game currency. One of the things I find most satisfying about playing these games is the notion of working toward a goal I set for myself like making enough C-Bills to purchase a new mech, or weapon system. Many games effectively force players to purchase in-game currency by making the in game earning rate too low.

Example: If a new Centurion costs 50,000,000 C-Bills (Just the chassis no engine/weapons or subsystems) and a successful mission; on average, nets 1,000,000 C-Bills that’s 50 missions at 20 minutes a mission that’s 17 hours of playing to purchase a centurion, and probably another 10 hours to purchase all the subsystems/weapons to make it combat ready. Am I the only one who’s enjoyment of the game is enhanced by the notion that each successful mission brings me one step closer to that shiny new PPC, or the tension of knowing that losing that $500,000 AC 20 because I didn’t want to punch out is a risk I take in combat.

I am not saying that players who want to spend real world currency to buy in game assets should not be able to do so, of course they should. What I am saying is that the rate at which a player earns currency in game should not be so low that they feel forced to purchase in game currency. Doing so Will make players like myself feel like missions have no real consequence or reward, because we measure our success in missions in part by how much in-game money we walk away with after a mission. If earning enough in game currency to field a centurion took 27hrs of game play most players would feel the need to purchase in game currency which would make earning in game currency from missions feel pointless.

If you want to sell me something, sell me one time things for example: An extra mech cradle in my hangar bay, or more storage space for equipment/weapons new computer voices for my mechs, I could go on and on, there are a lot of one time purchases I would make if they were available. My goal is to spend about $60.00 to support the game and more when you offer significant new content. Sell me a bunch of one time things. Don’t make me feel like I need to break out the credit card to buy a Mech, let me earn the C-Bills in game, and don’t make it so slow I feel like I am wasting my time, please, play test how long it takes to earn in game assets and make the times reasonable, the in-game economy is critical to this games success.

[Roger Wildcat]

I myself would like an option to buy a mech with credit as opposed to grinding several hours to buy it with C-bills. I just do not have the time for it.

Edited by Roger Wildcat, 28 June 2012 - 07:00 AM.

[autogyro]

I don't know which gold plated Centurions you've been buying but Centurions typically cost in the order of 3-4 million C-Bills . Although PGI might tweak the cost, but I doubt they'd scale it by factors. Doesn't make sense not to balance based on pretty much what they're supposed to cost.

I also don't think you'll be earning so little that it will make the game a huge time sink. Remember that paying for premium time only grants a 50% bonus, so it only reduces your playtime 33%. 66% of 27 hours is still 18 hours. Mechs have been stated to be worth around $15 each, so $15 or 18 hours doesn't seem to gel to me in terms of money to buy a mech vs buying premium time.

I'd expect more like a solid day's play per medium mech variant. Maybe 6 - 10 hours.

Edited by autogyro, 28 June 2012 - 06:54 AM.

[Team Leader]

Actually read this. I agree completely. Good points. This makes so much sense I dont know what else to say.

Also, if you are going to spend 60 dollars I would strongly reccomend buying the elite founders pack. It gives you 80 real dollars in game for future use.

Edited by Team Leader, 28 June 2012 - 06:50 AM.

[FactorlanP]

There must be some amount of grind. Must.

There has to be a reason why a person would pay real world cash. Since we have been promised that the game will NOT be Pay to Win, the only option is basically Pay to Grind Less.

[Eisenhorne]

Team Leader, on 28 June 2012 - 06:49 AM, said:

Actually read this. I agree completely. Good points. This makes so much sense I dont know what else to say. Also, if you are going to spend 60 dollars I would strongly reccomend buying the elite founders pack. It gives you 80 real dollars in game for future use.

That was my logic. I figure I get an atlas to start with + $80 credit for what I would spend on the game normally anyway. I don't plan on doing any micro-transactions in the game until the clans come out at least.

[MC Hammer]

Any boob can buy a mech, it is the skill required to earn one that makes them a better player.
I hope bought mechs will be labeled differently so we will know not to expect skill from the pilot.

PS I know this is coming from someone who has already bought 4 mechs

[autogyro]

Actually I just thought of another thing.

Supposing that to grind a typical medium mech takes say, 7 hours.

A Timberwolf costs 23,000,000 C-Bills. If a Centurion takes 7 hours, a Timberwolf will be about 46 hours of gameplay!

Surely there'll be some sort of balance to make it a fair grind but not super excessive.

[BlindProphet]

Gabriel Amarell, on 28 June 2012 - 06:36 AM, said:

Example: If a new Centurion costs 50,000,000 C-Bills (Just the chassis no engine/weapons or subsystems) and a successful mission; on average, nets 1,000,000 C-Bills that’s 50 missions at 20 minutes a mission that’s 17 hours of playing to purchase a centurion, and probably another 10 hours to purchase all the subsystems/weapons to make it combat ready. Am I the only one who’s enjoyment of the game is enhanced by the notion that each successful mission brings me one step closer to that shiny new PPC, or the tension of knowing that losing that $500,000 AC 20 because I didn’t want to punch out is a risk I take in combat.

Yeah lets use over inflated numbers to make a point! No one will notice my numbers are completely made up just to make my argument seem more valid right? /sarcasm

Devs have said average battle time is currently running at around 10 mins per match...

Centurion according to Sarna is 3.5 million cbills not 50 million...

And according to the mech lab video you get the variant's weapons already mounted on it, additional changes could/will cost extra cbills...

[Eisenhorne]

MC Hammer, on 28 June 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Any boob can buy a mech, it is the skill required to earn one that makes them a better player.
I hope bought mechs will be labeled differently so we will know not to expect skill from the pilot.

PS I know this is coming from someone who has already bought 4 mechs

Don't underestimate bought mechs... if your currently a pro at piloting a Jenner, I wouldn't expect a player who just went out and bought a commando to suck. If you buy another mech in the same weight class, I'd actually expect you to be better with it, because your probably buying something that would better suit your playstyle (or else why buy one at all?)

[pvtbryan]

tldr...

Quote

the rate at which a player earns currency in game should not be so low that they feel forced to purchase in game currency.

I'm sure it's fine. If it's akin to the similarly free to play "game that shall remain unnamed"... I've never actually paid money for in-game currency (played it about a year now). Now... "converting xp"... that's a different story. Whereas I've never felt "forced" to spend money at all - the "xp conversion" drastically speeds up the grind.

[Broceratops]

the first thing any studio has to do is pay their bills so I'm not going to tell them how to bill for their services, or what services they need to offer

and no i dont think 20+ hours to get a new mech is that much time. this is pretty much their business model here. if you can get a new mech in 4 hours or less, who would pay real money for a new mech? what exactly else should they be selling if not mechs? its the fastest thing they can pump out to make money, which they need since they have no actual cash flow unless people buy things.

expecting mechs NOT to be the prime selling point in this f2p model is naive

your suggestions of things like new voices, more storage space...who buys that stuff? you're basically saying, hey lets make the stuff most people actually want easy to get, then make useless crap cost $$$. on a game that only has cash store as revenue. real nice business model there.

Edited by Broceratops, 28 June 2012 - 07:16 AM.

[Jost]

Gabriel Amarell, on 28 June 2012 - 06:36 AM, said:

For me personally I abhor the idea of using real world currency to purchase in-game currency.

That's your personal choice. Me, I abhor the idea of endless hours of grinding. I like the way FactorlanP put it above: "pay to grind less". I respect that you feel differently, but "Chacun a son gout".

Gabriel Amarell, on 28 June 2012 - 06:36 AM, said:

Example: If a new Centurion costs 50,000,000 C-Bills ... and a successful mission; on average, nets 1,000,000 C-Bills that’s 50 missions at 20 minutes a mission that’s 17 hours of playing to purchase a centurion, and probably another 10 hours to purchase all the subsystems/weapons to make it combat ready.

Some very significant "if"s there, brother. I recommend making less assumptions before seeing what's really there in the game.

And, as others have noted, your cost for the Centurion is *way* too high.

[MetalDragoon]

They have stated they want the game to be fun not a chore, so im guessing they will dole out the c-bills nicely, if you win that is. Probably going to be more of a grind to the poeple who just want to go and shoot stuff and not work with their lance nor the rest of the company. They are going to grind and cause their team to grind because they are helping them lose! I have faith in pirhana, I have to, they are coming up with and awesome game model that I think may help really change how MMOs like this are done.

[Risky]

Edited by Risky, 28 June 2012 - 07:08 AM.

[Vladdaimpaler]

You all forget that just having the mech is not enough you're going to have to put in time grinding up the pilot skill tree for that mech as well. I think it will be somewhat like a certain russian tank game where buying a unit is not insta win but a time saver.

[Gabriel Amarell]

My number are way off, I understand, the number were not the point of this post. The issue at hand is the ingame earning rate. I have played many games where the ingame earning rate is so low that unless you want to spend 100 hours to get (whatever item your trying to get) you need to break out the creditcard. I am not saying that the criditcard option shouldnt be available for those who want it, I am saying for those who dont please please please, make the grind reasonable and find something else to charge me for...

[CL_Kodiak]

Although you make a valid argument and your post is very well written. It takes all of 30 seconds to make an online transaction. There would be no way to make grinding c-bills worth the time when I can just click a button and have my mech.

They have said it before - The mechs are not the game changers. It's the piloting skills and group coordination
that win games.

That being said, if there was a game breaking balance issue with a mech and everyone could just go and buy it and exploit the balance issue - I would hope that would be addressed immediately. That is the only potential issue I see with the system.

MW4 Nova Cat all ER large anyone? Mad Cat MKII anyone? Mechwarrior degraded into almost everyone using those mechs and it really ruined the game for me.

*edit*
Someone else also made a good point. None league games or "open" games will probably be riddled with campers that will just sit off in some safe area and not contribute as a means of earning c-bills... hopefully we will have tools to deal with these types of players.

Edited by Kodiak Steiner, 28 June 2012 - 07:37 AM.

[Broceratops]

Gabriel Amarell, on 28 June 2012 - 07:12 AM, said:

My number are way off, I understand, the number were not the point of this post. The issue at hand is the ingame earning rate. I have played many games where the ingame earning rate is so low that unless you want to spend 100 hours to get (whatever item your trying to get) you need to break out the creditcard. I am not saying that the criditcard option shouldnt be available for those who want it, I am saying for those who dont please please please, make the grind reasonable and find something else to charge me for...

what else do they have to charge for, that enough people will want to buy that they can keep paying the bills? you cant just throw something out like "charge me for something else" without saying what else you would be willing to pay money for. and I'm not talking 4 bucks. I'm talking at least 20 or 30 dollars.

unless you are suggesting certain mechs/weapons that are only buyable with real $$$, which is in my mind a lot worse than grinding 20 hours, i dont think there is anything else that is attractive enough to actually generate significant revenue

people play mechwarrior for mechs. it HAS to be the prime selling point. anything else doesnt make any sense.

you can either have

1) all mechs available for free, but it takes time to grind them out
2) 2 classes of mechs, free mechs which are easy to grind out, and premium mechs you simply have to pay for

or something like that.

you cant just have

3) you can get every mech for free, really fast

thats not a business model

Edited by Broceratops, 28 June 2012 - 07:25 AM.

[BlindProphet]

Gabriel Amarell, on 28 June 2012 - 07:12 AM, said:

My number are way off, I understand, the number were not the point of this post. The issue at hand is the ingame earning rate. I have played many games where the ingame earning rate is so low that unless you want to spend 100 hours to get (whatever item your trying to get) you need to break out the creditcard. I am not saying that the criditcard option shouldnt be available for those who want it, I am saying for those who dont please please please, make the grind reasonable and find something else to charge me for...

If the numbers are not the point, and are just made up, DON'T USE THEM. They do not help your point, it only takes away from it. You could have skipped all the cbill numbers, and just dealt with hours ignoring match time.

Second...the whole point of the premium account is to speed the grind while requiring minimal investment monetarily.