270 replies to this topic

[Whatzituyah]

Heffay, on 09 March 2015 - 12:18 PM, said:

Definition "An optimistic perception of something; a positive opinion; seeing something in a positive way, often thinking of it as better than it actually is."

Yes it is an opinion but it had directional JJs like in Table Top rather then straight upwards reason why people just want to poptart with them. It also had more then just mechs in it what does this have we only seen working whatever those jet things are, Dropships, and turrets.

Edited by Whatzituyah, 09 March 2015 - 12:24 PM.

[dimachaerus]

So, Just to bang my little drum once again, I was an alpha tester for MW:LL, I hung out with the devs pretty much all the time, and still do. The rumors that some devs had moved on to working for Crytek are true, though that only includes three devs out of over twenty or so total. Hell, one of the LL devs was the crytek rep who actually SOLD the engine rights to PGI.

As to the "Cease and desist":

We did receive a "not-so-friendly" little message from PGI, not MS, that we had "better stop working on MW:LL or else, and oh, here's another thing, you cannot include a mechlab in your project or else you're going to be sued". Long LOOONG before all this we had actually asked MS before the mod went public if it was kosher, and they gave us the green light as long as we didn't monetize it. Which we never did, all the servers, website hosting, long ass hours of dev work were totally unpaid in any fashion. Granted, winning mod of the year for several years running looked great on resumes and got some of the guys jobs in the field, but for most of us it was a pure passion project.

At the time were were told to quit, we'd been testing the arm aiming system for months, and had a nearly working mechlab, mech skins, and a whole new hud set to go. Work pretty much died at that point, besides a few die-hards who wanted to push the last tid-bits we had (and could publish) out the door.

The new hud, arm aiming, a slew of balance changes, and some new gear came out in our last mega-patch, and everyone moved on. PGI publicly stated they would love for the MW:LL devs to send in resumes because at that point we had more experience in making a cry-engine mech game than anyone else. However, the resumes that were sent in were ignored, and behind closed doors we were told that no member of the MW:LL team would EVER be considered for hiring at PGI. But hey, thats OK, a lot of the devs from MW:LL are now working much bigger and better jobs at companies raking in more dosh in an afternoon than PGI can in a month. Sadly this does not apply to Alpha testers.

Am I a little bitter? You bet your ass I am, but it hasn't stopped me from spending cash at PGI, because lets face it, they have pretty mechs and explosions, and there's no other game that scratches my mech itch like Mechwarrior.

[Heffay]

Whatzituyah, on 09 March 2015 - 12:21 PM, said:

Definition "An optimistic perception of something; a positive opinion; seeing something in a positive way, often thinking of it as better than it actually is."

Yes it is an opinion but it had directional JJs like in Table Top rather then straight upwards reason why people just want to poptart with them. It also had more then just mechs in it what does this have we only seen working whatever those jet things are, Dropships, and turrets.

It had a lot of things. A robust player base wasn't one of them. PGI is orders of magnitude ahead of MW:LL there.

Which leads to the question: If MW:LL had all these features and was so far beyond what MWO has today, why weren't they successful? Fancy features aren't what makes a game successful. Game play trumps all.

And the game play for MWO is spot on perfect. It's why people who have a life-long hate of PGI and anything remotely associated with them continue to play the game today: It's just downright fun. Oh sure, they'll say stuff like "I only play it because of my friends", but that's being quite disingenuous. The only people who do that are the kinds of people your mom warned against; the kinds that will jump off a bridge hoping you'll follow.

dimachaerus, on 09 March 2015 - 12:29 PM, said:

We did receive a "not-so-friendly" little message from PGI, not MS, that we had "better stop working on MW:LL or else, and oh, here's another thing, you cannot include a mechlab in your project or else you're going to be sued".

Has anyone ever procured this alleged document?

[KraftySOT]

If you say you dont want everything MWLL had but done to the quality of MWOs art, youre lying, or crazy, or working for PGI

Of course you want big open sprawling rolling hills, forests that act like the TT woods, tanks, aero, battle armor, varied objectives, the ability to pick what type of game you want to play, all the weapons, the better weapons mechanics (dem RAC overheats wuuut) and the things that were 'coming' in MWLL..a great mechlab with all the TT components, more game modes, better aiming mechanics, and more TT adaptations. With the quality of our models, textures, and map fluff, with less of a cbill grind and a real pilot 'tree' not a 'mastering' system.

Everyone wants that.

Everyone.

[Whatzituyah]

Heffay, on 09 March 2015 - 12:30 PM, said:

It had a lot of things. A robust player base wasn't one of them. PGI is orders of magnitude ahead of MW:LL there.

Which leads to the question: If MW:LL had all these features and was so far beyond what MWO has today, why weren't they successful? Fancy features aren't what makes a game successful. Game play trumps all.

And the game play for MWO is spot on perfect. It's why people who have a life-long hate of PGI and anything remotely associated with them continue to play the game today: It's just downright fun. Oh sure, they'll say stuff like "I only play it because of my friends", but that's being quite disingenuous. The only people who do that are the kinds of people your mom warned against; the kinds that will jump off a bridge hoping you'll follow.



Has anyone ever procured this alleged document?

Ever heard of the words "Its the only thing we have?" I don't think so referring to this game by the way your talking. MW2 had dirrectional JJs, MW3 not too sure, and MW4 definitly not but MW4 was considered a game that was bad in the Mechwarrior series but yet MWO has the same feature as it for jjs hmmmm....

KraftySOT, on 09 March 2015 - 12:32 PM, said:

If you say you dont want everything MWLL had but done to the quality of MWOs art, youre lying, or crazy, or working for PGI

Of course you want big open sprawling rolling hills, forests that act like the TT woods, tanks, aero, battle armor, varied objectives, the ability to pick what type of game you want to play, all the weapons, the better weapons mechanics (dem RAC overheats wuuut) and the things that were 'coming' in MWLL..a great mechlab with all the TT components, more game modes, better aiming mechanics, and more TT adaptations. With the quality of our models, textures, and map fluff, with less of a cbill grind and a real pilot 'tree' not a 'mastering' system.

Everyone wants that.

Everyone.

^^^^^

If this isn't sarcasm its my point here exactly thanks KraftlySOT.

Edited by Whatzituyah, 09 March 2015 - 12:34 PM.

[KraftySOT]

Heffay, on 09 March 2015 - 12:30 PM, said:

It had a lot of things. A robust player base wasn't one of them. PGI is orders of magnitude ahead of MW:LL there.

Which leads to the question: If MW:LL had all these features and was so far beyond what MWO has today, why weren't they successful? Fancy features aren't what makes a game successful. Game play trumps all.

And the game play for MWO is spot on perfect. It's why people who have a life-long hate of PGI and anything remotely associated with them continue to play the game today: It's just downright fun. Oh sure, they'll say stuff like "I only play it because of my friends", but that's being quite disingenuous. The only people who do that are the kinds of people your mom warned against; the kinds that will jump off a bridge hoping you'll follow.



Has anyone ever procured this alleged document?

Because you had to own Crysis, which means instead of having everyone as a possible player, only the people who bought or pirated Crysis were your possible player base, and as time went on, the player base of the host game, got smaller and smaller, thus the MWLL base got smaller and smaller.

It was a mod.

You rarely see a mod become DoD or Counterstrike, and when you do, its because it was sold to someone who could develop it in a timely manner to a quality that people would pay for. All mods die that dont get sold.

Do you have any idea how popular Action Quake was? The original Team Fortress? Infestation? Railwars? Science and Industry?

Who plays these things now. No one. Mods die. Its a fact of life. The best gameplay in the world will only subsist a game for so long. Otherwise we'd all still be playing Quake 2.

Not to mention, even with several million people playing Half Life, Counterstrike before it was sold, rarely had more than a few thousand people playing it at any given time. And thats one of the most successful games ever made.

Edited by KraftySOT, 09 March 2015 - 12:43 PM.

[Creovex]

dimachaerus, on 09 March 2015 - 12:29 PM, said:

So, Just to bang my little drum once again, I was an alpha tester for MW:LL, I hung out with the devs pretty much all the time, and still do. The rumors that some devs had moved on to working for Crytek are true, though that only includes three devs out of over twenty or so total. Hell, one of the LL devs was the crytek rep who actually SOLD the engine rights to PGI.

As to the "Cease and desist":

We did receive a "not-so-friendly" little message from PGI, not MS, that we had "better stop working on MW:LL or else, and oh, here's another thing, you cannot include a mechlab in your project or else you're going to be sued". Long LOOONG before all this we had actually asked MS before the mod went public if it was kosher, and they gave us the green light as long as we didn't monetize it. Which we never did, all the servers, website hosting, long ass hours of dev work were totally unpaid in any fashion. Granted, winning mod of the year for several years running looked great on resumes and got some of the guys jobs in the field, but for most of us it was a pure passion project.

At the time were were told to quit, we'd been testing the arm aiming system for months, and had a nearly working mechlab, mech skins, and a whole new hud set to go. Work pretty much died at that point, besides a few die-hards who wanted to push the last tid-bits we had (and could publish) out the door.

The new hud, arm aiming, a slew of balance changes, and some new gear came out in our last mega-patch, and everyone moved on. PGI publicly stated they would love for the MW:LL devs to send in resumes because at that point we had more experience in making a cry-engine mech game than anyone else. However, the resumes that were sent in were ignored, and behind closed doors we were told that no member of the MW:LL team would EVER be considered for hiring at PGI. But hey, thats OK, a lot of the devs from MW:LL are now working much bigger and better jobs at companies raking in more dosh in an afternoon than PGI can in a month. Sadly this does not apply to Alpha testers.

Am I a little bitter? You bet your ass I am, but it hasn't stopped me from spending cash at PGI, because lets face it, they have pretty mechs and explosions, and there's no other game that scratches my mech itch like Mechwarrior.

Good mod is a strong resume. Good to hear you all got new jobs since the last one wasn't paying.

[KraftySOT]

Heffay, on 09 March 2015 - 12:30 PM, said:

Has anyone ever procured this alleged document?

The person who does, and shares it, will never work again.

You seriously dont understand anything

[Heffay]

Whatzituyah, on 09 March 2015 - 12:33 PM, said:

Ever heard of the words "Its the only thing we have?" I don't think so referring to this game by the way your talking. MW2 had dirrectional JJs, MW3 not too sure, and MW4 definitly not but MW4 was considered a game that was bad in the Mechwarrior series but yet MWO has the same feature as it for jjs hmmmm....

When MW:LL was the only thing we had, they STILL didn't have any significant player base.

KraftySOT, on 09 March 2015 - 12:37 PM, said:

The person who does, and shares it, will never work again.

You seriously dont understand anything

Haha, right. If they weren't under an NDA, there would be no repercussion at all. Your tinfoil hat is on FAR too tight.

[dimachaerus]

Heffay, on 09 March 2015 - 12:30 PM, said:

Has anyone ever procured this alleged document?

It was an Email between PGI and one of the higher up Devs, no actual C&D was sent, but we were told that if we included a mechlab or stat tracking, or any "new" features beyond a set date we'd be slapped with a C&D and would at that point be liable for legal action.

I don't have the Email in question, no, and I never will. But I remember when we were told to pack it in at one of the weekly meetings, and that is what we (as testers) were told. This "Gentlemans agreement" stuff is pure bull, we were basically threatened with legal action if we didn't stop what we were doing.

Water under the bridge now, but if people are going to ask, they aught to at least hear what really happened instead of some well cooked bull.

[KraftySOT]

Heffay, on 09 March 2015 - 12:44 PM, said:

When MW:LL was the only thing we had, they STILL didn't have any significant player base.

Because it was never the only thing we had.

MW4, Megamek, table top. People who owned crysis, and also liked battletech/mechwarrior, were the only people who played MWLL. So what, maybe 8,000 people? Total? Out of the maybe, maybe 250k people who like Battletech / Mechwarrior?

When you still have a few thousand in MW4, a few thousand in Megamek, and several tens of thousands playing the board game?

Now you have maybe 50,000 of us in MWO, a similar number with the TT, and relatively the same number still playing MW4 (I see 270 people playing now on Tunngle) and Megamek.

[Heffay]

dimachaerus, on 09 March 2015 - 12:48 PM, said:

It was an Email between PGI and one of the higher up Devs, no actual C&D was sent, but we were told that if we included a mechlab or stat tracking, or any "new" features beyond a set date we'd be slapped with a C&D and would at that point be liable for legal action.

I don't have the Email in question, no, and I never will. But I remember when we were told to pack it in at one of the weekly meetings, and that is what we (as testers) were told. This "Gentlemans agreement" stuff is pure bull, we were basically threatened with legal action if we didn't stop what we were doing.

Water under the bridge now, but if people are going to ask, they aught to at least hear what really happened instead of some well cooked bull.

Well, maybe this smoking gun will turn up some day...

[dimachaerus]

Creovex, on 09 March 2015 - 12:37 PM, said:

Good mod is a strong resume. Good to hear you all got new jobs since the last one wasn't paying.

Lol wish I had gotten a job out of it, but being an Alpha tester isn't exactly the most glamorous job, and lets face it, there are a lot of us, and we're generally considered "expendable" staff. I'm still fixing Bicycles and selling people backpacks and tents to make ends meet.

[KraftySOT]

Looking at the ghosted copy of Piratebay, Crysis was only downloaded, ~160,000 times, so clearly a much smaller number was downloading it just to play MWLL.

Then you have the neckbeard aspect of Battletech. Those people dont steal, and they dont care about an unfinished product. Your Bishop Steiners (I still love you) and Joseph Mallen. They may have bought Crysis, but I doubt it, they may have DLed Crysis to try MWLL, but most likely they just watched the video because the barrier to entry to MWLL was to high for them. Why get a game they dont want, to play something thats not done.

Mods always have small player bases. Theres a barrier to entry. You have to have the game, know how to install mods, get the mod, find people to play with.

MWO you just have to download it and play.

If you had MWLL mechanics in MWO, MWO would be more successful than it is now, without a doubt, simply because MWLL was successful enough to have ANY PLAYERS AT ALL considering it was built on the back of a rather dull game, utilizing a genre full of people who generally dont buy First Person shooters, OR torrent crap at pirate bay.

Its obvious why MWLL had a small player base, and it has nothing to do with the quality or vision of the product.

Otherwise they wouldnt be making more money than the employees at PGI, working at much larger and more accomplished studios.

[Heffay]

dimachaerus, on 09 March 2015 - 12:51 PM, said:

I'm still fixing Bicycles

That makes you a hero in my eyes. When it comes to fixing bikes, I work under the philosophy "Just because I *can*, doesn't mean I should."

[Heffay]

KraftySOT, on 09 March 2015 - 12:53 PM, said:

If you had MWLL mechanics in MWO, MWO would be more successful than it is now, without a doubt,

Actually, that is very debatable. There is more to a game than just having some things to do. You need the sense of progression, the game play, server side detection (to prevent cheaters) and a monetization strategy to keep development going and pay for the online servers. MW:LL had none of those things. Just replacing mwoclient.exe with the MW:LL game would pretty much destroy it in less than a month.

[KraftySOT]

They also wouldnt have asked them to stop, if MWLL wasnt obviously going to split the Battletech community more than it already is.

Do you have ANY idea how many people are playing Megamek campaigns online and avoid this game like the plague because of its history and mechanics? Quite a few. And these are the people who have nothing else to do buy spend oodles of retirement and investment money on Ral Partha miniatures painted up by professionals for 80 dollars a pop, like its crack *******.

Pgi hooked a few of these guys with their snazzy looking mechs, but theres a plethora of more whales out there they could net if they didnt have such a lackluster game under their belt. These guys poured out money for this on kickstarter, and dont even play the game.

[dimachaerus]

KraftySOT, on 09 March 2015 - 12:53 PM, said:

MWO you just have to download it and play.

And that was our biggest handicap, setting up MW:LL was a long tedious process that often required modifying .cfg files yourself, installing and running everything in a very specific order, and praying that your computer could handle it and didn't hiccup during install. It also required owning first Crysis, and then Crysis wars, and for a very verrrrry long time you HAD to have a legit copy to play on anything but two servers.

Installing LL was WORK, and yet we still had a fuckbucket load of people play, that should tell folks something.

[KraftySOT]

Heffay, on 09 March 2015 - 12:57 PM, said:

Actually, that is very debatable. There is more to a game than just having some things to do. You need the sense of progression, the game play, server side detection (to prevent cheaters) and a monetization strategy to keep development going and pay for the online servers. MW:LL had none of those things. Just replacing mwoclient.exe with the MW:LL game would pretty much destroy it in less than a month.

Absolutely, but tanks, aero, battle armor, big maps, varied objectives, real woods, all the weapons, better weapon mechanics, huds that work, heat scale/threshold from MW2/3, JJs, etc...would absolutely not destroy this game. Quite the opposite.

You have to have the cbill grind, you have to have the mechpacks, you have to have the F2P model (well, we do now) im not arguing against these mechanics, its the mechanics that MWLL included and got right (really everything it had) that should be carried over. Which is also the reason that PGI asked them to stop, because PGI *CANT* do those things because it lacks the ability and drive to do them. Which is why Samurai has a better job than Viona. Even though theyre both extremely talented. PGI spent its cashola on graphics, not mechanics. Thats why Phil and Jordan "dont exist" anymore.

[ThisMachineKillsFascists]

Heffay, on 09 March 2015 - 12:57 PM, said:

Just replacing mwoclient.exe with the MW:LL game would pretty much destroy it in less than a month.

I love this man and his strong desire to compare stuff by ignoring the differency in the substance. Mod without monetary aspect vs full monetarized game with full time employees.


If you start to compare the game you need to be able to imagine how Boss MWLL would be as a standalone game with financial power behind it

Edited by ThisMachineKillsFascists, 09 March 2015 - 01:16 PM.