173 replies to this topic

[STEF_]

Deathlike, on 17 April 2015 - 05:53 PM, said:

I don't think chastising players really helps in the cause. People will put in the money that they feel they need to... for whatever the reason. It's their decision, and if they don't feel the game is worth putting in a dime for... well PGI probably didn't do a good enough job to convince them... or that they are satisfied with their experience "as is".

Although, it is amusing sometimes to poke a little fun @ the gold mech owners.




Sure, but at this point... the merits don't always need to be debated... but a reminder is necessary instead of just throwing money and hoping things resolves themselves... as people seem to think sometimes that will somehow get the game that they have been asking for..

I think that the phrase "throw money at a problem" is really misunderstood.
Money is useful to solve a problem BUT it must be given AFTER the problem is solved.

In fact my grandmother taught to me "Never buy something is not finished", and that's why I'm not a founder (and I'm not giving a cent to starcitizen too).

Thanks Grandma!

[STEF_]

Lord Scarlett Johan, on 17 April 2015 - 06:23 PM, said:

I've dropped $950 on this game since my Founder's pack in November of 2012. I've been well entertained for that $950 considering I've put anywhere between 10 to 20 hours a week playing.

However.

The sharp decline in quality of content, lack of content, and poorly made design decisions have inevitably shut my wallet.

For me, despite the poor state of the game, the decisive moment to close my wallet is been last Townhall.

Guys, sometime advertising can be dangerous for the company itself.

This is my personal review of last Townhall:
Russ: "Yes, we must improve the game, we are awere of this, that why, as all of you could read at twitter, we are planning 4vs4 and solaris and other game mode.
In a year. Or year and half.
Meanwhile, you can buy this Griffin!! Aaaaaaaaaaand IT HAS ECM!!! (so it's very good, buy it!)
And another mech pack too! very soon!"


clap clap clap

[Ralgas]

Stefka Kerensky, on 17 April 2015 - 11:41 PM, said:

I think that the phrase "throw money at a problem" is really misunderstood.
Money is useful to solve a problem BUT it must be given AFTER the problem is solved.

In fact my grandmother taught to me "Never buy something is not finished", and that's why I'm not a founder (and I'm not giving a cent to starcitizen too).

Thanks Grandma!

And that line of thinking is exactly why many kickstarter titles with real promise will never get any better than mwo, if made at all.

We could have even had a mwo competitor, complete with another of ms's recognised ip's attache many of the mw:ll team making the title, and single player to be released up front but noone wanted to know about it with the hype surrounding this.

[DaZur]

Bill Lumbar, on 17 April 2015 - 11:29 PM, said:

Ummmm Yeah..... I think its everyone's right to spend their hard earned cash how they see fit within their means. That said, funny you should bring up Apple as a example, because they seem to have many things in common with this topic we are talking about and PGI's pay model. I do not believe Alistair and his thread here is like him walking into a Apple store and protesting for others not to spend money on the Iphone 6.5.9 and a half because Apple has brought forth a minimal and over priced product for its customers.

What I do believe is that he is posting on this site, MWO, a public forum regarding his opinion and concerns with the direction of this game and where it seems to be going, or in his opinion, to be clear about it, the LACK of where its going, in his opinion. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think he has suggested or "protested" to anyone here NOT to spend money on this game, or to continue support PGI further with cash, in hopes of further development on this game by PGI. In fact, I think he has stated the opposite of your analogy, no?

Btw, to be clear, even if he is using a " leveraging maneuver using the withholding of monetary support." method as you claim, as customers of any company, isn't that the only real effective way to reach a company that has fallen out of touch with its customers? We as customers have every right to make that choice for our selves, and on a public forum, have every right to be civil and discuss or address our concerns with other customers, no?

Aw is welcome to his position and suggested actions and I support his right to do so, especially considering the well reasoned and non-hostile tone taken and the fact that I agree with several of his points of contention.

All I did was in kind, explain for the purpose of discussion, my position... AW questioned if what he suggested was truly holding hostage and I simply colored in a similar example.

[Bill Lumbar]

DaZur, on 18 April 2015 - 12:05 AM, said:

Aw is welcome to his position and suggested actions and I support his right to do so, especially considering the well reasoned and non-hostile tone taken and the fact that I agree with several of his points of contention.

All I did was in kind, explain for the purpose of discussion, my position... AW questioned if what he suggested was truly holding hostage and I simply colored in a similar example.

Not trying to call out your line of thinking, or your "similar example", however trying to understand your point by bringing forth such a "similar example", IYO. IMO, the only thing that is similar in your example, is Apples very over priced products, and very minimal ones at that vs other options by informed customers that know better. IMO, you made his views on the topic even stronger by using your chosen analogy, simply because of the fact that Apples model is very similar to PGI's model.

Given that AW has not suggested to anyone NOT to spend money to support or continue to support PGI's efforts and development of this game, I would tend to believe, given AW statements and claims made in this very thread, your "similar example" given is simply not a similar example at all... however, you are welcome to express your opinions and view freely, as we all are.

[STEF_]

Ralgas, on 17 April 2015 - 11:56 PM, said:

And that line of thinking is exactly why many kickstarter titles with real promise will never get any better than mwo, if made at all.

We could have even had a mwo competitor, complete with another of ms's recognised ip's attache many of the mw:ll team making the title, and single player to be released up front but noone wanted to know about it with the hype surrounding this.

You know... it's the new economy. Asking and obtaining money by only promising instead of giving

I'm feeling quite century-ish, atm.
It's NOT the customer that has to finance a project, but banks and productors.
While, in recent times, it's the opposite: the customers finance banks or projects. But LOL.

You'll never have my money with promises, but I can be a customer, buying REAL products

Edited by Stefka Kerensky, 18 April 2015 - 12:40 AM.

[Ralgas]

Bill Lumbar, on 18 April 2015 - 12:20 AM, said:

Not trying to call out your line of thinking, or your "similar example", however trying to understand your point by bringing forth such a "similar example", IYO. IMO, the only thing that is similar in your example, is Apples very over priced products, and very minimal ones at that vs other options by informed customers that know better. IMO, you made his views on the topic even stronger by using your chosen analogy, simply because of the fact that Apples model is very similar to PGI's model.

Given that AW has not suggested to anyone NOT to spend money to support or continue to support PGI's efforts and development of this game, I would tend to believe, given AW statements and claims made in this very thread, your "similar example" given is simply not a similar example at all... however, you are welcome to express your opinions and view freely, as we all are.

He didnt give any sort of a balanced argument on the matter though either. Yes there many area's of the game that need work, however i find it really amusing that several here complain about the slow progress given the increased speed content happens and balancing is enacted (regardless of it effectiveness) post the advent of mech pack sales.

[RedDragon]

Maybe you should put the restoration of Closed Beta graphics on your list, as illustrated by the following picture that shows forest colony back then and now (prepare to weep for what we have lost!):




More can be found here:
http://mwomercs.com/...old-days-again/

[Ralgas]

Stefka Kerensky, on 18 April 2015 - 12:39 AM, said:

You know... it's the new economy. Asking and obtaining money by only promising instead of giving

I'm feeling quite century-ish, atm.
It's NOT the customer that has to finance a project, but banks and productors.
While, in recent times, it's the opposite: the customers finance banks or projects. But LOL.

You'll never have my money with promises, but I can be a customer, buying REAL products

And when was the last time a publisher fincanced a truely finished product? How about the fact that mwo and or star citizen wouldn't exist without the customer funding? I'd love it to be more "centurish" when those big boys would give a fresh ip a go, purely based on a solid concept. Now days it just doesn't happen.

Your finacing choices are yours to make ofc, but then you have little right to complain when those "real" choices are rather limited or far from your expectation

[STEF_]

Ralgas, on 18 April 2015 - 12:53 AM, said:

And when was the last time a publisher fincanced a truely finished product? How about the fact that mwo and or star citizen wouldn't exist without the customer funding? I'd love it to be more "centurish" when those big boys would give a fresh ip a go, purely based on a solid concept. Now days it just doesn't happen.

Your finacing choices are yours to make ofc, but then you have little right to complain when those "real" choices are rather limited or far from your expectation

Why?
It's very simple. If I see a product that I like I buy it. That's why I'm not a founder, but when I saw that I was enjoying playing mwo, I've spend money in it.
I've even bought the Urbie recently, because I knew I was going to have fun with it.

But let's face it: in the last townhall, there is no a single word that can make me open my wallet.

About financing ip, I'm a customer, I'm not regretting the money I threw here, but before I give my money, I want at least to see something similar to promises.

I'm quite sure there are a bunch a players still thinking about pgi having promised something that is not the actual mwo.

Edited by Stefka Kerensky, 18 April 2015 - 01:08 AM.

[Torgun]

Ralgas, on 17 April 2015 - 11:56 PM, said:

And that line of thinking is exactly why many kickstarter titles with real promise will never get any better than mwo, if made at all.

We could have even had a mwo competitor, complete with another of ms's recognised ip's attache many of the mw:ll team making the title, and single player to be released up front but noone wanted to know about it with the hype surrounding this.

The thing with kickstarter is that you can still look up a company's track record and see what they've done previously. If everyone did that and actually put some consideration into it, PGI would never have gotten the backing they had. Instead it was more a case of thousands of BT fans throwing money at PGI because you know, it's BT.

Edited by Torgun, 18 April 2015 - 01:09 AM.

[Ralgas]

Torgun, on 18 April 2015 - 01:09 AM, said:

The thing with kickstarter is that you can still look up a company's track record and see what they've done previously. If everyone did that and actually put some consideration into it, PGI would never have gotten the backing they had. Instead it was more a case of thousands of BT fans throwing money at PGI because you know, it's BT.

Which is why fans of mech combat all jumped on Heavy Gear Assault for the measely million or so they wanted for essentaillya solaris pub queue with single player made by whats left of the old mektek team, amirite?

Oh, wait..............

Edited by Ralgas, 18 April 2015 - 01:36 AM.

[Torgun]

Ralgas, on 18 April 2015 - 01:33 AM, said:

Which is why fans of mech combat all jumped on Heavy Gear Assault for the measely million or so they wanted for essentaillya solaris pub queue with single player made by whats left of the old mektek team, amirite?

Oh, wait..............

I guess you forgot how that was when people was as most disappointed with PGI after all their promises that never happened and lots of people were giving up on the game. Are you really surprised they didn't feel like paying for another mech game startup?

[Weeny Machine]

About the argument: "They need to sell mech packs to stay afloat"

To some degree I understand this argument. You need to pay salaries, pay the server providers etc. I also understand that if you put resources into those mechpacks to stay afloat, others improvements (new maps, better modes etc) advance at snail's pace.

However, then I wonder if the point of no return isn't already reached. I mean how often can you play the same maps? How often can you stand the same playmodes (the 3 modes differ hardly. Usually it is better to just kill the enemy team)?

[michaelius]

Well I do - never bought anything beyond initial founder pack because everything here is so insanely overpriced.

[Shredhead]

When I look at all those whiners bitchin about the pricing in MWO I wonder how and why games like Warthunder, World of Tanks and its derivatives are such huge successes.
Especially Warthunder has a crappy matchmaker, you can't choose game modes, the pricing is exactly the same if not more expensive for higher tiers and the grind is insane compared to MWO. The pricing for WoT is the same as well.
Warthunder has way less maps than MWO, technical issues en masse, bugs and the balancing is simply awful. WoT is even worse when it comes to matchmaking and balancing, and it has less maps as well.
So yes, I consider 20 respectively 30 $ for three mechs, mechbays and some little extras appropriate. Wait times and matchmaking and balancing in MWO is, compared to those games, pretty damn good. Map variety is simply amazing. Progress is slow, but steady. Even the old bugs we had to deal with since CB finally get resolved one after the other. So yeah, I dished out money for wave 3, and if I like the mechs in the next IS pack, I'll dish out some money for that as well.

I think sometimes people should take a look at those games to see how good we have it here.

(I like Warthunder anyway, don't judge it on my rant.)

[Mister Blastman]

Geist Null, on 17 April 2015 - 04:00 PM, said:

Your list is of very minor issues that you would put before the continuation of the game itself. Sure I want certain problems fixed and new modes in place, but telling the others not to support pgi is akin to killing 1 dev to make 2 others work harder. All that practice will do is bring them down faster. Its f2p, ante up if u love btech cause this is the end of the line for the IP. If success is longlasting, theres hope down the road, if the players collapse it, its on you. As always I'm willing to donate at the low level, i owe the devs that much for my 10hrs a week.

What you say is precisely my problem with PGI and their business model. Because they trashed MW:LL (I don't care what anyone says, especially apologists. They DID shut down MW:LL by forcing them to cease development and not release the mechlab), we have nothing left to play. Well, MW:LL is still there, it just is... incomplete (but way more fun to play regardless).

And then they make the dumbest decisions in history by hosting their own servers instead of letting us host them and not allowing us to provide content for the game in the form of maps. These are the two worst decisions I've seen them make.

And it upsets me to no end. So no, I don't have any pity. I don't feel compelled to spend money just to keep them afloat on life support. I want real value for my dollar. I want real content. I'm tired of playing on the same maps over and over again. I'm tired of the same core problems nagging at the game. I'm tired of their broken promises.

And that's why I don't buy these mechpacks and don't feel bad about it. Polish the game, then release it. It isn't the other way around. Believe me, I know. I'm a writer myself and polishing is the worst part. It takes WORK. Lots of WORK. And that work has no promise of reward. But if you don't polish and release a rough gem, eventually the flaws will shine through and overwhelm whatever good was there to begin with, including all the potential.

I appreciate the hard work that goes into creating a creative property. It is a very difficult road. For those who have never been down it, it is hard to understand. But those who have (on their own IP)... well you know what I mean then.

So sadly, I'm compelled to not buy any of these packs. Because what I see now is a cycle of asking for money and delivering less and less. That doesn't cut it. That's real money--money I work hard for. And if they want it, they can work hard for it too.

[Mister Blastman]

RedDragon, on 18 April 2015 - 12:53 AM, said:

Maybe you should put the restoration of Closed Beta graphics on your list, as illustrated by the following picture that shows forest colony back then and now (prepare to weep for what we have lost!):




More can be found here:
http://mwomercs.com/...old-days-again/

Doesn't it make you angry when you realize just how brown, hazy and impossible to see without thermal/night vision the maps have become?

[Skarlock]

Alistair Winter, on 17 April 2015 - 03:33 PM, said:

• Low quality mech textures (e.g. camo patterns)
  
• Ugly damage textures
  
• Removing inverse kinematics (mechs matching the angle of their feet with the terrain)
  
• Less dramatic visual effects for death (e.g. less glowing metal, less visible ammo explosions)
  
• No working cockpit screens (Never saw them. Removed in CB, I'm told)
  
• Missiles with spiralling flight paths
  
• The changes from dynamic geometry. The CPLT used to look like this. Now it looks like this. And don't get me started on the CTF or CN9 or Jagermech. Just check out this thread.
  
• The changes to sound effects, many of which were quite unpopular. Especially the ballistics sounds, but many people feel that old PPC and SRM/LRM sounds were also better.
  
• Atlas glowing eyes.

Check out this thread for tips on how to get Russ' attention on Twitter.

I've probably spent several hundred dollars on this game. I've purchased the masakhari collection, wave 2, resistance, wave 3 on pre-order, and urbanmech collector edition. I honestly don't care about any of these things at all. They're pretty trifling to me compared to the importance of promoting variety in the mechs people take. All I have to say is I'm very pleased with my original clan mechs, wave 2 was ok but not great, save for the hellbringer, and resistance felt like a complete joke with how mediocre most of the mechs were.

That being said, I'm not going to pre-order resistance 2 until they reveal the quirks. The resistance collection is severely underquirked and I honestly feel like I got ripped off for the most part. In my personal oppinion there is not a single mech in the entire resistance collection, save for the Enforcer 4R that can even begin to compare to the power of clan mechs, and yet many other inner sphere mechs that weren't part of the collection received amazing quirks. I feel like this is basically a bait and switch tactic and as a customer I do not appreciate it. I don't feel like PGI is deserving of my trust, or my money at this point until I know exactly what I'm buying.

[Alistair Winter]

MoonUnitBeta, on 17 April 2015 - 10:05 PM, said:

I'd rather pay another $120 and get it all fixed up rather than not spend $120 and watch it never get fixed.

I personally think that's a false dichotomy, but it all depends on how you view PGI's economical position, their willingness to change their course, etc.

I may very well bump this thread in a year's time, and I'll be very pleasantly surprised if PGI stops to make a big effort to fix the issues mentioned in the OP (graphics and sound). But I think it's fairly unlikely that they will, because it seems to be well beyond their means, given their current rate of progress and all the things they're working on.

Chuanhao, on 17 April 2015 - 07:43 PM, said:

I think we all intrinsically vote with our wallet. What u are attempting though is sharing with us how u weigh your investment in the game and what u feel is bang for the buck. And thanks for sharing your perspective.

Sure, I definitely wanted to share my perspective. But I also wanted to call out other people who have been very vocal about their discontent and urge them to be more proactive. Game development isn't a democracy, and PGI abandoned the idea of a player council, so there's very limited ways the consumers can influence the product. I personally think that's regrettable, and my post history will show that I've done a lot to provide both new ideas, constructive criticism and to support the player council.

So with no other recourse, I'm also making a point of saying that our most efficient method of communication is either buying or not buying. And whichever camp people fall into, I encourage them to use that method of communication to achieve their goals.

Shredhead, on 18 April 2015 - 07:09 AM, said:

When I look at all those whiners bitchin about the pricing in MWO I wonder how and why games like Warthunder, World of Tanks and its derivatives are such huge successes.
I think sometimes people should take a look at those games to see how good we have it here.
(I like Warthunder anyway, don't judge it on my rant.)

I didn't play Warthunder very long, but I did play Star Conflict quite a lot. And it is one example I often bring up when I demonstrate simple things that MWO should do, but isn't doing. I won't get into it here, but Star Conflict is made by the same people as Warthunder. When it comes to lore, immersion, new player experience, player polls in the UI, community warfare, daily events and quests. and many, many other things, Star Conflict just makes MWO look extremely primitive.

MWO does have more fun gameplay than Star Conflict though, so I've now gone back to MWO. But that doesn't mean MWO is better in every aspect. And playing Star Conflict for free is infinitely more fun than playing MWO for free. MWO is a brutal experience unless you pay money, but Star Conflict is pretty fun regardless.