118 replies to this topic

[pyrocomp]

Lily from animove, on 11 February 2015 - 03:53 AM, said:

But what is the future of how MWO is going to pay itself? once most mechs are done, what is going to sustain money for the game? Especially without going p2w? I guess customisation is the way to go. It's the only feaure thats not affecting gameplay a lot, except probably some true camo effects on visibility.

Maps, modes, decals, contests and events, same class different manufacturer weapons (AC/10 shooting 2 projectiles with 5 dmg, lasers with slightly different burn durations, etc.) for different pricing, implementation of extraodinary long list of features like real salvage, C3 networks, sensors and their effects, vehicles, commander mode, valve-inspired mech hats (just kidding, but who knows)... In any case, MWO have really large room to grow into setting aside upgrade of damage model from 20-year old one; implementation of heat model that accounts for weapon and heat sinks allocation and heat transfer between then and components; ejections; tons of presently not available wepons like long tom... long lists, yes.

[Lily from animove]

pyrocomp, on 11 February 2015 - 04:03 AM, said:

Maps, modes, decals, contests and events, same class different manufacturer weapons (AC/10 shooting 2 projectiles with 5 dmg, lasers with slightly different burn durations, etc.) for different pricing, implementation of extraodinary long list of features like real salvage, C3 networks, sensors and their effects, vehicles, commander mode, valve-inspired mech hats (just kidding, but who knows)... In any case, MWO have really large room to grow into setting aside upgrade of damage model from 20-year old one; implementation of heat model that accounts for weapon and heat sinks allocation and heat transfer between then and components; ejections; tons of presently not available wepons like long tom... long lists, yes.

but those mentioned features ar enot features you can charge money for.

you have two things in a game like MWO:

new content
Income to pay the server.

now if you do not want to make p2w, some of the new content has to be available for money.
Selling maps is not really working. Same for weapons and such. So while the BT lore has a load of further features, which of them are going to pay the devs and runnign the servers?

What PGI could sell is customisation. like different weapon models for (U)AC 5's and such. This does not have impact on the game features and balances, its just visuals.
vehicles, maybe, depends on how usefull they are.
maybe PGI could sell some graphic upgrades? I heard there are some higher resolution skins. SO poeple with the rig able to run this stuff could just buy such a thing.

[El Bandito]

Lily from animove, on 11 February 2015 - 04:22 AM, said:

but those mentioned features ar enot features you can charge money for.

you have two things in a game like MWO:

new content
Income to pay the server.

now if you do not want to make p2w, some of the new content has to be available for money.
Selling maps is not really working. Same for weapons and such. So while the BT lore has a load of further features, which of them are going to pay the devs and runnign the servers?

What PGI could sell is customisation. like different weapon models for (U)AC 5's and such. This does not have impact on the game features and balances, its just visuals.
vehicles, maybe, depends on how usefull they are.
maybe PGI could sell some graphic upgrades? I heard there are some higher resolution skins. SO poeple with the rig able to run this stuff could just buy such a thing.

If the game is successful, and the pricing is less of a rip-off, then many new players will spend money to keep the game afloat.

[pyrocomp]

Lily from animove, on 11 February 2015 - 04:22 AM, said:

but those mentioned features ar enot features you can charge money for.

you have two things in a game like MWO:

new content
Income to pay the server.

now if you do not want to make p2w, some of the new content has to be available for money.
Selling maps is not really working. Same for weapons and such. So while the BT lore has a load of further features, which of them are going to pay the devs and runnign the servers?

What PGI could sell is customisation. like different weapon models for (U)AC 5's and such. This does not have impact on the game features and balances, its just visuals.
vehicles, maybe, depends on how usefull they are.
maybe PGI could sell some graphic upgrades? I heard there are some higher resolution skins. SO poeple with the rig able to run this stuff could just buy such a thing.

Hi-res textures won't matte since you see them, but not others.
But for selling department:
0. premium time, yes, this will be there always with bundles and starter kits.
0a. mechbays
0b. storage space (yes, no more than 100 tons of weapons/equippement/etc
1. weapons (i.e. lostec or recovered SL cashes) always strctly limited.
2. SL era mechs (limited)
3. Skins (whatever including in some reaaly weird things)
4. Decals (yes, your callsign or your lance/company banner)
5. In case of money drought sell laser beam colors (yep, seen by everybody)
6. if money lust is desperate sell mech footprints, JJ and lrm burnout colors (yes, color those)
7. some cheat-like modules: enhanced vision, silincers etc.
8. show ad on in-game billboards
9. subscription if players base/need will be
10. ... should I go on?
999. hats

[Lily from animove]

pyrocomp, on 11 February 2015 - 04:45 AM, said:

Hi-res textures won't matte since you see them, but not others.
But for selling department:
0. premium time, yes, this will be there always with bundles and starter kits.
0a. mechbays
0b. storage space (yes, no more than 100 tons of weapons/equippement/etc
1. weapons (i.e. lostec or recovered SL cashes) always strctly limited.
2. SL era mechs (limited)
3. Skins (whatever including in some reaaly weird things)
4. Decals (yes, your callsign or your lance/company banner)
5. In case of money drought sell laser beam colors (yep, seen by everybody)
6. if money lust is desperate sell mech footprints, JJ and lrm burnout colors (yes, color those)
7. some cheat-like modules: enhanced vision, silincers etc.
8. show ad on in-game billboards
9. subscription if players base/need will be
10. ... should I go on?
999. hats

9, 7, 2 and 1 would posibly kill the game since they entirely change the games marketing model, so no they would mostlikely start to fail.
And which f2p title ever went into a subscription model?

3, 4, 5, 6 and 999 are just customisation, so basically a single point on a real list.

[pyrocomp]

1 and 2 at insane $500 price won't ruin. And without extreme bonuses. 5% better a stat or two will be enough to be attractive and game ruining.
And customization is all in f2p aside from some staff or variants available only through MCs or real cash.

[Roadkill]

Torgun, on 11 February 2015 - 03:52 AM, said:

The difference is the stocking stuffer event give out random rewards, which you really can't deduce anything from with results from a small portion of the player base. The latest event give a certain amount of points for each match, not random points, which makes any calculations from that much more accurate.

The most recent event gave either 10 or 20 points, essentially at random, and with CW thrown in it was over an essentially random length of time. So it's hardly less random than the stocking stuffer event.

And you can draw conclusions from the stocking stuffer event because the "random rewards" were not in fact random but were given out along a sliding scale. It doesn't take very many examples to be able to figure out that sliding scale, after which the end result does in fact tell you how many rewards were given out.

I keep coming up with ~100,000 players, give or take. Some obviously play far, far more than others, but they all count.

[Jdude1]

2200 people online and I can't find 11 that don't pug?

[LordKnightFandragon]

This game has a very small playerbase lol.....its almost amusing.

[Lily from animove]

Jdude1, on 11 February 2015 - 10:50 AM, said:

2200 people online and I can't find 11 that don't pug?

get more friends?

[Torgun]

Roadkill, on 11 February 2015 - 10:18 AM, said:

The most recent event gave either 10 or 20 points, essentially at random, and with CW thrown in it was over an essentially random length of time. So it's hardly less random than the stocking stuffer event.

And you can draw conclusions from the stocking stuffer event because the "random rewards" were not in fact random but were given out along a sliding scale. It doesn't take very many examples to be able to figure out that sliding scale, after which the end result does in fact tell you how many rewards were given out.

I keep coming up with ~100,000 players, give or take. Some obviously play far, far more than others, but they all count.

The rewards were most certainly random in stocking stuffing event. Not everyone got the same amount of MC, tricks or whatever by a predetermined factor since we didn't all play an infinite amount of games. It is way more guesswork than either 10 or 20 points, which at most can vary by a factor of 2. Besides we're not saying there was a total of 2000 players during the whole last event, we're saying it was about average that many players at the same time during the event.

Edited by Torgun, 11 February 2015 - 11:30 AM.

[Zeece]

From Russ's Twitter Feed

00MEAT ‏@00meat

• @russ_bullock Player count estimation from event came to peak 2800 and trough 1650. Can we get a warmer/colder on this?

Russ Bullock ‏@russ_bullock

• @00meat player count for the event? I don't understand - this event there was no opt in so everyones matches contributed.

Zeece_MWO ‏@Zeece_MWO

• @russ_bullock @00meat He is referencing this discussion on community count - http://mwomercs.com/...warrior-online/[1] …

Russ Bullock ‏@russ_bullock

• @Zeece_MWO @00meat I haven't read the post but the numbers he through out are low by a fair bit

[Roadkill]

Torgun, on 11 February 2015 - 11:29 AM, said:

The rewards were most certainly random in stocking stuffing event. Not everyone got the same amount of MC, tricks or whatever by a predetermined factor since we didn't all play an infinite amount of games. It is way more guesswork than either 10 or 20 points, which at most can vary by a factor of 2.

What I meant is that the "random" rewards were assigned to a number of possible results, and that with just a few people reporting their data you could easily figure out all of the possible results and their respective chances to occur. For example, the 500,000 c-bill reward was a lot rarer than the 50,000 c-bill reward. With that results table in hand, figuring out the number of c-bill rewards that were given out based on the total value of all those rewards combined would be pretty easy and accurate enough for our purposes.

Torgun said:

Besides we're not saying there was a total of 2000 players during the whole last event, we're saying it was about average that many players at the same time during the event.

Yep, understood. And that seems reasonable enough to me as an average based on past experience with MMOs. Peak times feel significantly higher than that to me, but still within a range where 2k is a reasonable value.

[Doc Sav]

When I said MechWarrior Tactics was "promising", I mainly meant in regard to the fact that it managed to generate enough revenue pre-development to get the project going. I have heard the game itself was mostly bad, but I have read that the IOS tactical style game that was recently released (MechWarrior Tactical Command) is pretty good.

I guess my main point in all this is really that I would like PGI to have the chance to develop the game that any other developer would have in a similar situation, even though we as players are witnessing the development as it goes. Especially after they separated from the publisher, which may have been a cause of some of the early development issues.

[Lindonius]

Zeece, on 11 February 2015 - 11:48 AM, said:

Russ Bullock ‏@russ_bullock

• @Zeece_MWO @00meat I haven't read the post but the numbers he through out are low by a fair bit

"Through out? "



Of course it must be true if it comes from the mouth of The Holy One. He's never obsfucated the truth before at all has he?

Ever?

Edited by Lindonius, 11 February 2015 - 08:46 PM.

[Lunatic_Asylum]

How is the population today? Starting CW takes as much time as during its release, I guess.

[crustydog]

Vassago Rain, on 10 February 2015 - 04:13 PM, said:

5.5 million in founder's money before kickstarter was a thing,

The game's somehow managed to limp along for 3 years of active service now.

The thing is, $5 million is no longer really a lot of money. That's about the gross revenue of a successful 7/11 mini-mart.

You have to squeeze like hell to pull before tax profits out of that each year.

I'm not convinced anyone at PGI is raking in the big coin yet.

Billion is the new million these days.

[Naelbis]

$5 dollars a month for a premium bonus that actually matters and I bet there would be very few players not running it.

[Almond Brown]

OH! OH! May I pull some bs numbers outta my arse too... please, please.