270 replies to this topic

[DaZur]

LOL!

Any holder of an IP has a right to issue a cease and desist order if they feel someone is infringing on that right... That said, it is also the IP holders prerogative to not pursue it if the infringing body is not viewed as being a threat.

That "threat" is not exclusively "monetary", but can also be infringement on competitive market share.

Removing conspiracy theory tin-hats and setting aside anti-capitalism rhetoric... PGI/IGP and or Microsoft was well within their rights to do what they did.

Don't have to agree with it and you can surely consider them being bullies, especially considering MW:LL's marginal following and what not.

RE: Luas and MODs and stuff... Oh, I assure you if any of them reached a point where they netted any profit, Lucas would have been all over them with an injunction. Difference here is Lucas benefits from these MODs and stuff keeping the genre fresh and invigorated. MW:O wanted to be to singular focal point for the BT/MW IP... MW:LL was a market threat.

Edited by DaZur, 09 March 2015 - 09:31 AM.

[CyclonerM]

Mystere, on 08 March 2015 - 05:00 PM, said:

Are you trying to imply that license holders are not allowed to defend their interests?

That is more like admitting that a free mod could compete with a professional made game

Vassago Rain, on 08 March 2015 - 05:08 PM, said:

In short, it wasn't a fun game,

That is entirely subjective. I think it is the best BT experience you can find. It is a shame that it has had so few players and that no more updates have been released.. I heard they had something ready like Elemental claws

Creovex, on 08 March 2015 - 05:10 PM, said:

MWO pays for license, MW:LL doesn't. Thus, MW:LL was told by the owner of the license(rumor Microsoft) to walk.... Which they should have...

Side Note: It played okay (more CoD then Simulator) but the JJs on mechs was like poptarting on crack while doing 20 other drugs and touching the moon.

I do not quite think it has ever had enough players to compete with MWO. And it was free. There is no reason they could have done it.

Anyway, CoD feeling? Seriously?

If you think MWO's learning curve his hard, you have not played MW:LL. And JJs are how they are supposed to be - jump
jets.

Taemien, on 08 March 2015 - 05:52 PM, said:

But of course the communities in question doesn't want to take the blame. So they're firing at PGI, MS, or even Catalyst Games or Topp who have no idea what is going on. Or even Harmony Gold, even though they didn't care that MWLL used the Warhammer, Rifleman, and Marauder.

Where did you see a Marauder in MW:LL? I would like to pilot it

[Kristov Kerensky]

According to the MW:LL forums, there was no cease and desist order or a threat of one, but hey, why believe the folks who'd know right? True, some of the people on the MW:LL forums STATED that there were threats and such, but the actual devs of MW:LL denied those claims.

Did IGP or MS threaten them? I wouldn't be a bit surprised, MS is well known for this practice, and I wouldn't put it past IGP to have done it either, considering how many people on THESE forums were screaming far and loud how great MW:LL is and how horrible MWO is. This thread shows that quite well. IGP or MS or whoever obviously didn't actually look into MW:LL if this is indeed what happened, or they would have seen there was no reason to threaten them.

Might have been something to do with the fact that 2 of the MW:LL devs were actually WORKING for CryTek that caused the real shutdown of the mod, since Crysis 3 was in development at the same time...but no one wants to hear that. And now those devs are working for Chris Roberts and his Star Citizen project, which has, oddly enough, missed every single target date for every single thing that's been promoted. Hey, didn't MW:LL have that issue to?

Always wondered about the folks touting MW:LL as such a great thing personally, I was never that impressed with the actuality of the mod, although the IDEAS behind it were great, the reality was very lacking. True, it was one of the few BTech video games around, since the dissolution of the MS Zone made playing MW4 difficult, and the dissolution of Gamespy made playing MW:LL even harder since it wasn't exactly easy to find a server anymore. But hey, none of those have anything to do with anything, MW:LL was the BESTEST MW GAME EVAR!!!!!!!!! At least according to a few very vocal folks here.

BTW, JJ in MW:LL were a joke, then again, not a single MW title has ever actually gotten them to work according to the TT rules, distance jumped is NOT vertical distance, as someone else already explained.

[KraftySOT]

Kristov Kerensky, on 09 March 2015 - 09:34 AM, said:

According to the MW:LL forums, there was no cease and desist order or a threat of one, but hey, why believe the folks who'd know right? True, some of the people on the MW:LL forums STATED that there were threats and such, but the actual devs of MW:LL denied those claims.

Did IGP or MS threaten them? I wouldn't be a bit surprised, MS is well known for this practice, and I wouldn't put it past IGP to have done it either, considering how many people on THESE forums were screaming far and loud how great MW:LL is and how horrible MWO is. This thread shows that quite well. IGP or MS or whoever obviously didn't actually look into MW:LL if this is indeed what happened, or they would have seen there was no reason to threaten them.

Might have been something to do with the fact that 2 of the MW:LL devs were actually WORKING for CryTek that caused the real shutdown of the mod, since Crysis 3 was in development at the same time...but no one wants to hear that. And now those devs are working for Chris Roberts and his Star Citizen project, which has, oddly enough, missed every single target date for every single thing that's been promoted. Hey, didn't MW:LL have that issue to?

Always wondered about the folks touting MW:LL as such a great thing personally, I was never that impressed with the actuality of the mod, although the IDEAS behind it were great, the reality was very lacking. True, it was one of the few BTech video games around, since the dissolution of the MS Zone made playing MW4 difficult, and the dissolution of Gamespy made playing MW:LL even harder since it wasn't exactly easy to find a server anymore. But hey, none of those have anything to do with anything, MW:LL was the BESTEST MW GAME EVAR!!!!!!!!! At least according to a few very vocal folks here.

BTW, JJ in MW:LL were a joke, then again, not a single MW title has ever actually gotten them to work according to the TT rules, distance jumped is NOT vertical distance, as someone else already explained.

To be fair. I was thar. I reddit. There were cease and desist, however it wasnt an overtly "Were gonna crush you!" tone. Samurai simply got sick of even dealing with the franchise because of not only that, but because of Phil, and "the other Battletech expert" who has completely vanished around here, as well as Harmony gold coming down on PGI, AND working for Crytek, AND RSI. It was a perfect storm of reasons to abandon it. After all it was a mod.

You dont still see me working on Day of Defeat do you? Nope. Thunderweenie, Carl, myself, sold it to Valve. When you make a mod, youre doing it for experience, and notice. Thats really about it.

As for Star Citizen, given the scope of the project, delays are inevitable, but when they do get their product hype out, it does actually function as described. You can actually walk around your ship, take a poop, dog fight, and play some SP (I believe that episode is out). And it functions as they said it would.

Still waiting on my role warfare...let alone the rest of my Battletech in my Battletech game.

[Variant1]

After the announcement of making last patch the mwll community were reasonably upset, but they were toxic about it too which makes them look bad. After that things have been quiet between mwo and mwll, so yea its best not to bring these kind of topics mrripley9 less you want to open those wounds again.

From what i take MWLL isint that great of a game, its made by small team and it shows:
Theres a lot of bugs, the mechs look worse then the MW2 ones. Whats really awesome is they have battle armor, tanks and aircraft but unfortunately thats the sole focus. they buffed tanks and aircraft so they could be able to take on mechs with ease which is a very bad thing to do when your game has mechwarrior in it. For me the tanks and aircraft should have remained unbuffed and focused more on being used as npc support instead. The game didn't have a mechlab which is basically devolving consider previous titles had mechlabs (MW4). The weapon hardpoints although look unique and look different are also a problem considering they look like some one strapped super soakers on the mechs.

[General Taskeen]

Creovex, on 08 March 2015 - 06:53 PM, said:

Hey to each there own.... I prefer some jump, but if I want to be Apollo 13 it is not in a mech...

This may be news to you or others, but JJ's in BattleTech are like having rocket jets that propel the Mech to whereever the pilot intends to land very quickly using special Future Space Magic. They are nothing like the slow hovering useless, non-directional jets in MWO. Basically MW:LL's was the closest JJ's have ever been in any MW game besides Mech Warrior 2, with full directional key support (Ex, Press A+Jump = Mech quickly jump left sideways). Also, as of the last update of MW:LL JJ's were balanced against poptarting with proper screen shake and a full burn (using all the jet fuel) raised the heat to half or full making firing all weapons impossible. Hopefully this info helps. That is all.

[The Red Priest]

Variant1, on 09 March 2015 - 09:53 AM, said:

After the announcement of making last patch the mwll community were reasonably upset, but they were toxic about it too which makes them look bad. After that things have been quiet between mwo and mwll, so yea its best not to bring these kind of topics mrripley9 less you want to open those wounds again.

From what i take MWLL isint that great of a game, its made by small team and it shows:
Theres a lot of bugs, the mechs look worse then the MW2 ones. Whats really awesome is they have battle armor, tanks and aircraft but unfortunately thats the sole focus. they buffed tanks and aircraft so they could be able to take on mechs with ease which is a very bad thing to do when your game has mechwarrior in it. For me the tanks and aircraft should have remained unbuffed and focused more on being used as npc support instead. The game didn't have a mechlab which is basically devolving consider previous titles had mechlabs (MW4). The weapon hardpoints although look unique and look different are also a problem considering they look like some one strapped super soakers on the mechs.

I'll give MWO that. The models, graphics, and animations are superb, but, so far, from my experience with MW:LL, the gameplay is much better and isn't the same thing over and over again. There's no grinding(praise GOD) either. The mechs also feel like their weight class as well. 20 ton light running at 200kph? Sure, but you're going to be hard to control, and make sure you don't run into a building or another mech. Have fun with that!


MW4 was terrible. >.>

Seeing as, in the other games, there were tanks and planes, there would be in this game as well! However, tanks, although formidable, are pretty easy to kill. The only problem are planes and vtols and the only reason why is because they're hard to hit.

Edited by mrripley9, 09 March 2015 - 10:03 AM.

[Bongo TauKat]

While MWO is still crawling from the start up feel of a team death match game I am holding on to the hopes that it will progress to a blend of MWLL aspects and non-BT fan interaction.

[The Red Priest]

Bongo TauKat, on 09 March 2015 - 10:01 AM, said:

While MWO is still crawling from the start up feel of a team death match game I am holding on to the hopes that it will progress to a blend of MWLL aspects and non-BT fan interaction.

One thing I've noticed is that PGI has taken a lot of the stuff that MW:LL has come up with. 30 second timer for CW? That was in LL, the current zoom? LL. et cetera. I mean, they're learning, which is good.

[KraftySOT]

mrripley9, on 09 March 2015 - 10:06 AM, said:

One thing I've noticed is that PGI has taken a lot of the stuff that MW:LL has come up with. 30 second timer for CW? That was in LL, the current zoom? LL. et cetera. I mean, they're learning, which is good.

Psst, LL got that from MW3.

PGI learns nothing.

This is why MWO has made absolutely no additions to the franchise.

[The Red Priest]

Now I'm not badmouthing PGI here. What I AM looking for is an official answer from them.

[Variant1]

mrripley9, on 09 March 2015 - 10:01 AM, said:

so far, from my experience with MW:LL, the gameplay is much better and isn't the same thing over and over again. There's no grinding(praise GOD) either. The mechs also feel like their weight class as well. 20 ton light running at 200kph? Sure, but you're going to be hard to control, and make sure you don't run into a building or another mech. Have fun with that!

Actually arguably it was the same thing with the exception of solaris arena(ffa). In team deathmatch you would always start off with small set of cash then grind up for better mechs. As for the grinding c-bills in this game, well its a F2P tis both a blessing and a curse were mwll is a free mod, the team worked on it on spare time. I will say though i liked that a lot of the maps in MWLL were big, hope pgi will release larger maps in the future.

"MW4 was terrible. >.>"
you take that back! that was my favorite game!

edit:

KraftySOT, on 09 March 2015 - 10:11 AM, said:

PGI learns nothing.

This is why MWO has made absolutely no additions to the franchise.

Are you sure? Since beta we had a ui change, turrets added in assault, the mechlab customization is pretty awsome and pgi has listened to the community by implementing changes and nerfing things.

mrripley9, on 09 March 2015 - 10:11 AM, said:

Now I'm not badmouthing PGI here. What I AM looking for is an official answer from them.

I think you can send a twitter to Russ and ask him about it.

Edited by Variant1, 09 March 2015 - 10:15 AM.

[The Red Priest]

KraftySOT, on 09 March 2015 - 10:11 AM, said:

Psst, LL got that from MW3.

PGI learns nothing.

This is why MWO has made absolutely no additions to the franchise.

Touche, good sir. Touche.

Variant1, on 09 March 2015 - 10:12 AM, said:

"MW4 was terrible. >.>"
you take that back! that was my favorite game!

NEVER!

[KraftySOT]

mrripley9, on 09 March 2015 - 10:11 AM, said:

Now I'm not badmouthing PGI here. What I AM looking for is an official answer from them.

Wont get it. That time has passed.

[Variant1]

mrripley9, on 09 March 2015 - 10:12 AM, said:

NEVER!

okay

Edited by Variant1, 09 March 2015 - 10:18 AM.

[The Red Priest]

Variant1, on 09 March 2015 - 10:18 AM, said:

okay

I'm sorry, do you need a hug? LOL

[Variant1]

mrripley9, on 09 March 2015 - 10:20 AM, said:

I'm sorry, do you need a hug? LOL

its k, thank you though

[KraftySOT]

And im not bad mouthing PGI either even if it sounds that way. Im just being realistic.

"Too play a wrong note is nothing, to play without passion is unforgivable."

Theres a finite limit to the amount of 'awesome' you can produce when your only passion for a project is "keep the lights on, keep the rent paid."

The reality is, they arent going to go out on a limb, like a guy who makes a free mod out of passion will, because they arent in this for Battletech and they arent in this to take risks. They set up to buy up an old franchise, any old franchise, and revive it to a degree that theyre more successful than making run of the mill hunting games.

They dont have an amazing team of really creative and potent programmers and artists, they have what they can afford and who they can keep. Thats not saying theyre bad, theyre not. [redacted] Theyre good at what they do. They just arent great. And the fundamentals of Battletech (the complexity) requires greatness to be able to put out something that isnt just completely derivative of previous iterations, and uninspired new functionality without adding any new game devices to the franchise...

And honestly why would they. Working with a 50k player base, they cant take big risks and make big changes and add new game devices.

They might go under if they do that.

[Kristov Kerensky]

KraftySOT, on 09 March 2015 - 09:52 AM, said:

To be fair. I was thar. I reddit. There were cease and desist, however it wasnt an overtly "Were gonna crush you!" tone. Samurai simply got sick of even dealing with the franchise because of not only that, but because of Phil, and "the other Battletech expert" who has completely vanished around here, as well as Harmony gold coming down on PGI, AND working for Crytek, AND RSI. It was a perfect storm of reasons to abandon it. After all it was a mod.

You dont still see me working on Day of Defeat do you? Nope. Thunderweenie, Carl, myself, sold it to Valve. When you make a mod, youre doing it for experience, and notice. Thats really about it.

As for Star Citizen, given the scope of the project, delays are inevitable, but when they do get their product hype out, it does actually function as described. You can actually walk around your ship, take a poop, dog fight, and play some SP (I believe that episode is out). And it functions as they said it would.

Still waiting on my role warfare...let alone the rest of my Battletech in my Battletech game.

Umm, HG hasn't done anything regarding MWO, ever. They DID raise their head and threaten lawsuits when PGI's video for their console MW game was released to the public and used a Warhammer in it, but that was back in 2009, so I'm failing to see how that would have any influence on anything. Or do you mean that HG was threatening MW:LL due to the use of Unseen? Unless that is what you mean, I'm at a loss here as to why you'd bring up HG and MWO, as that's a literal non-issue.

Day of Defeat..you mean the mod that Valve bought in 2003 and Activision published that year? Or do you mean the DoD:Source version, created by and released by Valve in 2005? Again, I'm at a loss here as to what that has to do with anything.

The official stance of the devs at MW:LL was that there was no C&D order or threat of one, you are saying there was and you've seen it, which is oddly enough what was posted on the MW:LL forums and why someone there felt the need to say it wasn't real. So which story is real?

You've obviously gone a bone to pick with PGI, that's obvious, so you'll excuse me if I take your statements with a grain of salt. Russ addressed this issue, it was addressed officially on the MW:LL forums as well at the time, and both seems to contradict your statement, sorry.

As for Star Citizen, I've got friends who had invested in it, I ask them about it's state every so often and whether I should invest in it. These same people have as much invested in MWO as I do, which is quite a bit. Every single time the answer from them has been 'NO, do not give SC any money, they've yet to meet a single date they've set and when they DO finally release content, it's not what was advertised'. Sorry, again, I'm going to take someone else's word over yours, especially since you so obviously have an axe to grind re PGI.

mrripley9, Russ directly answered the allegations some time ago, no such C&D order from PGI, gentleman's agreement that MW:LL would stop producing new content, that's it.

[Aethon]

As an alpha tester and content contributor in MWLL (there are a few others here as well), I will tell you what I know since, unlike some others, I am not bound by any STFU legal paperwork.

PGI approached MWLL to come to an agreement on how they could gimp MWLL, because apparently, Battlefield 3065 and World of Mechs cannot coexist. They came up with the following terms:

1. MWLL could not have persistent stat tracking.
2. The mechlab, which was damned near complete, must be omitted.
3. No new features could be added after January 1st, 2013. Bugs could be fixed, and issues could be addressed, but no new features (mechs, maps, assets of any type) could be added beyond that point.

As long as Wandering Samurai Studios agreed, and adhered, to those terms, there would be no actual cease-and-desist letter.

Some who have no knowledge of the subject whatsoever will come in here and call BS, or tell everyone that 'the MWLL fanboys all have their tinfoil hats on', etc. If you go into the Wayback Machine and look up MWLL's main page from the day the first announcement was made, it confirms what I am telling you; that announcement was changed the following day to the way it stands in their archives now. I believe it was some time in July or August 2013.

Furthermore, when Russ claims that he is on friendly terms with the MWLL folks, and that he 'spoke with someone at a convention, and the guy was glad he could just shut it down and move on', [Redacted] First off, if the team had features that were complete and/or nearly complete, why would they abruptly omit them from the game, and shut the mod down shortly thereafter? If the mod had been allowed to complete all planned features prior to being canned by PGI, I seriously doubt the current level of bad blood would exist. For example, every member of the Hell's Horses from MWLL was a dev or content contributor; I am the only whose love of Battletech outweighed my hatred for PGI after what they did.

TL;DR: PGI shut down MWLL, and some persist in denying it.