63 replies to this topic

[Commander A9]

Aren't we playing what amounts to Mechwarrior 5 right now?

And Mechwarrior 4 isn't dead.

Trust me.

[Rebas Kradd]

Marack Drock, on 18 March 2015 - 05:37 PM, said:

They are only JUST NOW after 4 years giving us what they promised.

Okay...hold up for a second.

First of all, that number is creeping upwards with every complaint I see. Four years ago was before work even began on the game, when they were still securing the IP from Smith & Tinker. Even three years ago was before Closed Beta arrived. We were supposed to have nice things about TWO years ago, yes. That's significantly less than four - half, in fact - and has a decidedly different impact to the reader.

Second of all, the delays have been explained. Not on time and not very well, but they were explained. Technical debt, publisher disagreements, and mostly (and still pertinently to the project) a very small staff that still insists on correct process as best it can. Most of PGI's failings were in PR, not the delays themselves.

Thirdly, this game has managed, even after all this time, a sound and active core player base that's still keeping the lights on at PGI's studios. You can claim "majority" all you want (and there are all kinds of problems with that claim), but the fact this game still exists despite all the "position changes" and community problems are a statement on the quality of MWO whether you want it to be or not.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 23 March 2015 - 09:42 AM.

[StompingOnTanks]

Rebas Kradd, on 22 March 2015 - 03:48 PM, said:

Okay...hold up for a second.

First of all, that number is creeping upwards every time I see someone complain. Four years ago was before work even began on the game, when they were still securing the IP from Smith & Tinker. Even three years ago was before Closed Beta arrived. We were supposed to have nice things about TWO years ago, yes. That's significantly less than four - half, in fact - and has a decidedly different impact to the reader.

Second of all, the delays have been explained. Not on time and not very well, but they were explained. Technical debt, publisher disagreements, and mostly (and still pertinently to the project) a very small staff that still insists on correct process as best it can. Most of PGI's failings were in PR, not the delays themselves.

Thirdly, this game has managed, even after all this time, a sound and active core player base that's still keeping the lights on at PGI's studios. You can claim "majority" all you want (and there are all kinds of problems with that claim), but the fact this game still exists despite all the "position changes" and community problems are a statement on the quality of MWO whether you want it to be or not.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

This game is hardly dangling by a thread. I see new players all the time, I consistently get matches (slow matchmaker at heavier weight classes blah blah blah we know) and the constant new content, updates and such must mean that this game is doing fairly well.

If you want to see a TRULY dead game... Go download World of Warplanes and try to find a match.

If you go into que and see more than 75 players waiting, you got really, really lucky.

If you get set up in a match with more than 3 players on each team... Well, that doesn't happen anymore, actually. Never mind.

Edited by StompingOnTanks, 22 March 2015 - 06:22 PM.

[Anjian]

I don't see this game dying, or at least not yet.

There is a fundamental shared reason, although its not obvious, why a game like Hawken went flush to the toilet, and yet in a separate genre, World of Tanks becomes a phenomenon and War Thunder is greatly expanding its user base with its tanks battles (by more than 100% since Ground Forces was introduced). This is leading further to games like World of Warships and Dreadnaught.

Its called Positional Warfare or Positional Gaming as opposed to Twitch gaming. All games use a combination of Position and Twitch, but generally FPS games are more Twitch than Position unless its a sniper game. An aircraft game for example is also a combination of Position (altitude, location, energy management) and Twitch, although there is still a stronger proportion of twitch. A space fighter game can be considered much more of a twitch game and positional importance might even be less than an aircraft game.

In contrast, a tank game is highly positional, and the same goes with a game of warships. A positional game means you have to be in the right place and in the right time, and your brains have to figure this out. This makes it more of a thinking shooter than a twitch or reflex or reaction shooter.

A mech game like Armored Core is more twitch than position ratio. Mechwarrior Online is more position than twitch in its ratio than lets say AC, Hawken or any of the run of the mill FPS games, but War Thunder Ground Forces or World of Tanks is still even more positional than MWO. Within MWO, I find Community Warfare even more positional than the main public queue of Skirmish, Assault and Conquest.

So in order for MWO to be successful, it has to focus on Positional Warfare / Thinking Shooter aspect, and make it even more distinct and focused than the tank games. Right now, people interested in a "thinking shooter" are invariably looking for a positional type of warfare, and would head to a tank game first. This is why although these tank games are on the surface, might only be indirect competition to MWO, in essence, they are genuine competition.

The people who are actually looking for a "mech" game are very small, and mechs don't really attract people in the same sense as tanks and starsihps do. And for people who like mechs, a lot of them won't like the Battletech/Walker type either, they might be more interested with more of the Gundam type, just as people who like Walker type mechs won't like these Gundam types either. This sharp division of tastes makes this market for mechs even smaller, to the point its non viable.

No. I think Mechwarrior Online should focus and market itself as a futuristic positional ground warfare game based on mechs, as opposed to a mech game. There is like I said a difference between the two, since Hawken and Armored Core are also mech games, but not as a positional. There is a growing hunger for Positional Warfare games. I did mention Dreadnaught in the first paragraph. Dreadnaught is essentially a positional warfare game using spaceships which in essence separates itself from spaceship games based on twitch (Star Citizen and the like).

[K19]

The question and even the PGI and not your small MW5 titles! maybe but only for those who do not know the Great in the Battletech and because it can for the game MW5 and not in MWO that simply only uses Mech. It is interesting to see that the mod MWLL people used to the Battletech name vehicles and say that's saying something: P PGI do not want to end. Thank the guys decided that it review a title that comes from another great title Battletech. The foul and work on the project and not limit the choices as players.

[Wolf486]

Gee...I thought MW5 died because they got hauled into court for using the image of the Warhammer or Robotech Tomahawk and by the time it was all said and done Smith&Tinker were gone, MW5 had no interest in it because of the long court issues, and PGI was left with the IP. So they went forward with MWO and promised never to use any "Unseen" images that correspond with Robotech. http://www.maximumpc...5_legal_trouble

Also MekTek as a mod group had been around WAY before 2009 and had been supporting MW4 with MekPaks since the early 2000's if not the late 90's. Now MekTek is working as a legit Studio on Heavy Gear Assault and has done other work in the industry for other companies as a subcontractor.

Edited by Wolf486, 23 March 2015 - 12:01 PM.

[Rebas Kradd]

Marack Drock, on 23 March 2015 - 11:57 AM, said:

Anyways I have been around since Open Beta began..... and this game has come a long way.... in the past few months ONLY. The rest of the time we got: Mechs, maps, and nothing else for 3-4 years. Also don't give me the publisher crap, PGI can develop all they want

Well, if you're not willing to acknowledge the real budgetary issues and such, there's no discussing things with you.

But your timeline is all kinds of buggered. According to every official source I can find (including Chronojam's magnum opus) Closed Beta didn't start until May 2012. We were told by Karl Berg (a source generally regarded as trustworthy) that it was a six-month crunch from FLOC until then, so work began LATE in 2011, at which time it was NOT appropriate to expect, you know, anything at all, much less "all that we had been promised". And it didn't reach open beta until a year after that. Your timeline really isn't philosophically allowing for the "beta" concept at all, nor does it begin on the correct date to begin with.

[AkoolPopTart]

Marack Drock, on 20 March 2015 - 12:28 PM, said:

Am I the only one who can barely understand the Google Translator crap? Cause I have barely understood a thing this guys says.

You're not alone....Reading translated material is rather awkward. That's why I write **** to people in simple english so that anyone who took it in High school would be able to understand it.

K19, on 23 March 2015 - 11:13 AM, said:

The question and even the PGI and not your small MW5 titles! maybe but only for those who do not know the Great in the Battletech and because it can for the game MW5 and not in MWO that simply only uses Mech. It is interesting to see that the mod MWLL people used to the Battletech name vehicles and say that's saying something: P PGI do not want to end. Thank the guys decided that it review a title that comes from another great title Battletech. The foul and work on the project and not limit the choices as players.

Bro....simple words....use bullet points if you must....

Regardless if PGI decides to actually take the Mechwarrior franchise seriously, I doubt that the final product would be any good. Sure it would look pretty, I'd love to see MW4 get a revamp in the graphics department, but I have this terrible feeling that says that they'd completely ignore the Battletech lore and create some poor excuse of a campaign and focus on multiplayer like everyone else.

[Rebas Kradd]

I can agree on one thing...MW is a niche franchise and thus always climbing uphill.

I remember being a big X-Wing vs TIE Fighter community member back in the day. Massive 300+ member club, monthly competitions, always someone to play with. We were a proud little group, we thought we were a fairly strong and healthy group, and we thought there was a serious problem with the MSN Gaming Zone's decision to shut down our gaming rooms.

The reality - and it really took only one look at, say, the Jedi Knight gaming room to realize this - is that we were only a tiny cult following in the grand scheme of things. One that LucasArts just wasn't making much money off of. MechWarrior is like this. MWO's core is healthy and sound, but it's a small core, and the game just doesn't have enough of an audience to be choosy about whom it caters to. Plenty of reasons for this, mostly the sheer depth of the game once all the customization, background knowledge, and control nuances are thrown in. But the simple truth is, MWO's core being small doesn't mean it's a struggling game. Just means it's a MechWarrior game.

[K19]

AkoolPopTart, on 23 March 2015 - 01:16 PM, said:

You're not alone....Reading translated material is rather awkward. That's why I write **** to people in simple english so that anyone who took it in High school would be able to understand it.



Bro....simple words....use bullet points if you must....

Regardless if PGI decides to actually take the Mechwarrior franchise seriously, I doubt that the final product would be any good. Sure it would look pretty, I'd love to see MW4 get a revamp in the graphics department, but I have this terrible feeling that says that they'd completely ignore the Battletech lore and create some poor excuse of a campaign and focus on multiplayer like everyone else.

Your comparison is not wrong it comes to graphic MW4merc. Because PGI and very slow in this area. All well the translation is not the best. But you play to you MWLL "MechWarrior Living Legends" these simple fans did what the PGI only now to do this three years! and much screwed. Look and then says something.

http://www.mechlivinglegends.net/

Edited by K19, 24 March 2015 - 10:40 AM.

[K19]

Marack Drock, on 25 March 2015 - 06:56 AM, said:

Yeah, Fans that actually made that game without Legal rights to the franchise, images, or anything else. Also when MW:LL was shutdown it had been around for almost 3 years.... and all it had was: About 15 or 20 maps, Bunch of mechs, Aerospace and Tanks, and a few gamemodes......... so it was exactly like this game. Difference: We had all gotten attached to MW:LL so much we automatically despised PGI for shutting them down (even though it was Samurai Studios' fault), and then PGI had a very slow development time, but they have delivered TONS more than there ever was in MW:LL. You didn't even have MechLab in MW:LL.

I think not but I do not remember if he had mech lab in MWLL. Another scene know how and the Battletech and Robotech titles have in your game boards both be with each other in terms of figures "doll" and the discussion on the Warharmmer and other mech? PGI just could not redraw them to him? Get well.

[Repasy Cooper]

Marack Drock, on 25 March 2015 - 06:56 AM, said:

Yeah, Fans that actually made that game without Legal rights to the franchise, images, or anything else. Also when MW:LL was shutdown it had been around for almost 3 years.... and all it had was: About 15 or 20 maps, Bunch of mechs, Aerospace and Tanks, and a few gamemodes......... so it was exactly like this game. Difference: We had all gotten attached to MW:LL so much we automatically despised PGI for shutting them down (even though it was Samurai Studios' fault), and then PGI had a very slow development time, but they have delivered TONS more than there ever was in MW:LL. You didn't even have MechLab in MW:LL.

Not to mention the mechanics in MWO are way better than MW:LL. At least the lasers in this game aren't front-loaded.

Also... kudos to you man for being able to actually understand that guy. Lol his posts are making my eyes bleed.

[K19]

K19, on 18 March 2015 - 10:47 AM, said:

So as you can press the PGI to do what must be done to make the MW5 think, since it seems to afford to do so? Another note MWO has to be "hard core" game, because people in my point of view has to be 60% simulator and the rest 40% or arcade fun brave but that at this point this far. Come on guys let's go for MW5 on the road.

A curiosity do you think the sound of this videio?

Repasy, on 25 March 2015 - 01:36 PM, said:

Not to mention the mechanics in MWO are way better than MW:LL. At least the lasers in this game aren't front-loaded.

Also... kudos to you man for being able to actually understand that guy. Lol his posts are making my eyes bleed.

If you think! So you do not know what we're talking about. MWO is still very green "young". If you understand boy. The one-eyed view to this video and repairs in the sound environment for you to check out the difference. If you know much then tells PGI who want better sound effects. MWLL was rather good in your style. Another question how many languages you speak and you write?

[Repasy Cooper]

K19, on 26 March 2015 - 10:42 AM, said:

If you think! So you do not know what we're talking about. MWO is still very green "young". If you understand boy. The one-eyed view to this video and repairs in the sound environment for you to check out the difference. If you know much then tells PGI who want better sound effects. MWLL was rather good in your style. Another question how many languages you speak and you write?

Umm, well I honestly don't know what you're talking about...

But to answer the one part I did understand, I speak/write English. Have you heard of it? It's fairly common, you should familiarize with it.

[Rebas Kradd]

Marack Drock, on 23 March 2015 - 01:55 PM, said:

True very true. Although i think there needs to be a time when this community and PGI accept there will need to be change if this game is to continue. Like you said: You X-Wing guys (that was a great game I loved that) got shut down when Lucasarts wasn't making enough money. I wonder how long PGI will be able to run this. It will either be: They don't make enough money, or Microsoft will shut them down if they don't make enough off of this. They both have to get their share of the money and I don't see them making anymore much longer because this community is tiny.

Well, the small size of MWO's community dictates certain things. They have to cater to casuals and newbies, they have to err on the side of simplicity and straightforwardness, they have to design maps with the intention of funneling players to the action quickly (no laborious scouting or communication, as the Islanders wanted), they need to explore multiple avenues of making money, and they can't afford a dozen game modes for fear of splitting the queues too severely and jacking up wait times.

Even in these areas, I feel they've done a fair job towards balancing complexity and simplicity. Certain aspects like ECM are designed without the mind-numbingly confusing rock-paper-scissors ethos that lore gave them, yet it still provides an extra nuance. Maps are three-route simple, yet they still vary terrain in order to give brawlers a place (something that NO previous MechWarrior with its wide-open flat maps has ever done). Consumables exist, yet the game has stayed away from P2W in every category.

What we really need is the Steam release. Launch on that thing and, at the same time, throw in three new game modes (interestingly designed this time) and start a series of downloadable content of single-player and cooperative missions. That gives PGI some flexibility on what additional features they can put into the game.

[K19]

Repasy, on 26 March 2015 - 10:50 AM, said:

Umm, well I honestly don't know what you're talking about...

But to answer the one part I did understand, I speak/write English. Have you heard of it? It's fairly common, you should familiarize with it.

Respond ? boy. A simple thing, you know languages so do not speak, will study subject. I'll be honest you know why I have to write in English because my language and the third most spoken in the world so why give me the job of translating for you? Out of respect. By the way and Portuguese found in half the world, around the world always "one". Google and not good translator always have the correcting.

[K19]

Marack Drock, on 28 March 2015 - 09:34 AM, said:

Yeah and English, Spanish, and French are all Latin Romance based languages as well. Doesn't mean we all speak them. You do know that Germany, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Canada, Romania, Iceland and many others are all parts of NATO as well? I don't see you knowing how to speak Icelandic or understand their culture. Why should people who are not going anywhere near your civilization take time out of their lives to learn your language and ways if it won't help them? We aren't going to Portuguese forums, so we have NO reason to learn Portuguese.

Also Ancient Akkadian is older than Latin and died out before Latin became such a prominent language (about 2170 BCE).

Yeah no, only about 4 percent of the world speaks Portuguese. It is NOT worldwide and is spoken by fewer people than in the population of the United States of America (yes K19 I can read that Spanish). It is not worldwide. It is spoken in 9 Countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_languag

http://en.wikipedia....native_speakers

I have nothing against your country or anything but do not make random statements without knowing the facts. Your language may be (in terms of total population) the sixth most spoken language but 90% or so of all the people who speak it are all in South America. Being in NATO makes no difference. Several countries are all in NATO, doesn't mean I learned all of their languages.


Yeah you will be banned if you keep that up. There is no legal release of MechWarrior 4 mercenaries anymore and any Website still doing this is distributing pirated information making this illegal and you infringing Global Copyright laws by promoting this, as well as infringing Code of Conduct here on MechWarrior Online.

English is not a language originating in Latin but rather an evolution of Latin but am I saying. About NATO're right point. About MW4M link to this there and to be used. PGI to go to work. Another answer could note about BattleTech and Robotech and their difference? their difference and because I've been there MW5 could advance. If I'm wrong I apologize.

[K19]

Marack Drock, on 29 March 2015 - 08:04 AM, said:

Technically its an evolution of German, Greek, Latin etc its a mutt language. It has over a 60% base in Latin and Greek and the rest is German. It originated in Latin and then was built using other languages. Much like Spanish and French (both Latin based languages as well). Just look at the words-

English- Jesus
Latin- Jesus (Pronounced Yay-sus)

We take most of our language from Latin and Greek. Its safe to say it originated from Latin.


It may be there to be "used" doesn't make it legal though. No one has the rights to legally distribute MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries.

"About MW4M link to this there and to be used. PGI to go to work."
Languages ok you win. My phrase about "PGI WORK" and not on MW4m but the PGI work harder for the players to forget the past and move forward. ok. About the licenses on the designs of the mech used to videio MW5! What a mess and who owns the licenses because each sold other buy others say the opposite and therefore it will crap all want money.

[K19]

Marack Drock, on 30 March 2015 - 10:13 AM, said:

Microsoft owns all rights to the MechWarrior Video game franchise. PGI has the license to release future games. They do not have a license for the older titles though. The other games are all still owned by Microsoft, Activision, and Microprose (now absorbed into Infogrames). PGI is working hard for us to move forward in this franchise but the reason they are not doing a great job at it is because they have not managed to make this game live up to the others in the MW namesake. I will happily set aside my other MW games when they make this game live up to the name of MechWarrior. Until then however this game is not nearly as good as the others, but the others can't be released legally because no one has legal rights to them other than Microsoft who owns all Media rights to the franchise other than Board games and novels.

The best option was to buy all the licenses on the title in question. But PGI have any information about the cash on hand for a possible purchase of licenses?

[K19]

Marack Drock, on 31 March 2015 - 10:12 AM, said:

They wouldn't do that because they wouldn't make any money off of it. MekTek released MechWarrior 4 Mercs for FREE. They did not make a penny of that deal. PGI never would especially since we know they do not have enough money at hand to fund their own games like Transverse. There is no cash benefit to buying the licenses for the older games especially when they will have to continue paying royalties on them.

So in the future we are subject to the current game is closed? But instead of paying is without with them! More captivate players to play MWO instead they are put to run.