169 replies to this topic

[Stealth Fox]

Sereglach, on 18 April 2015 - 10:24 AM, said:

No offense, but there's a LOT of things you're missing with this statement that leads to terrible misinformation to people who are willing to take a post like this at its word:

Oh? how so? I'm sure you'll tell me.

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1. Those people selling 60 dollar polished games only need to fund the creation of that minimum 60 dollar game, release it, and then only keep a TINY staff on that game for some bug fixes and patches . . . if they even do that. Afterwards the rest of the staff is either laid off or working on the next title for the multi-product company. Need I also add that MWO happens to be the only thing PGI is working on, with a relatively small development staff.

So you are telling me that it would be to expensive to make a finished game (which MWO has never been) Keep the small staff, then roll out timeline additions, new mechs, tech and map? EVEN MORE ******** with how small PGI is suppose to be, They have the perfect set up to keep their group going if they actually put effort into the game. Not to mention their poor showing of how they have done ANYTHING with this game has killed a few other projects they wanted to do.

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2. You know what a lot of the money PGI is getting goes into? Maintaining those servers that run the game. Maintaining the constant FULL development staff that is constantly working on adding more to the game . . . not a tiny contingent of people set to release a few patches until the game is "good enough". Also, PGI's prices aren't that bad . . . if you think they are, then you need to do a lot of comparison to other games out there. About the only thing PGI really needs for its monetization are more dinky little 1-2 dollar purchase items (decals will be big for that) to allow more cosmetic customization. Those actually will help bring in a lot more revenue then you'd think.

PGI's problem isn't its small size, it is the fact they are to lazy or incompetent to do anything meaningful in any span of time. Servers are not that expensive and it sure as hell is not like they have any Euro servers to take care of. so THAT can't be where most of the money goes. Also this flies in the face of every 40 to 60 dollar game that has multiplayer, If it is so expensive to have a games server up and running, and we have already established game companies are in it for the money, not the fans, Then how the hell are they able to justify keeping a much larger server base up for much longer, for outdated games, when all they got was the 40-60 plus some DLC? As well as with PGI's 'fixing' delays. It's not that hard to adjust numbers like Quirks, It is not that hard to scale down or up Mechs unless you are an idiot and did the rigging, skinning and meshing totally wrong, it is not that hard to find a good way to balance things.

I know I'm comparing an Axe to a Shotgun with this, but look at Riot, when they balance champions, they rarely touch items, they touch the champions themselves. But from the start, PGI has been dumb enough to try blanket buffs and nerfs time and time again EVEN when the quirk system was coming into play. You NEVER blanket nerf or buff to fix a few things, it messes with to much stuff!

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3. Older MMO's were never Free To Play. Not only were you paying the 60 dollars to get the initial game; you were paying the 60 dollars for the initial game and THEN paying a subscription fee of 10-15 dollars PER MONTH! That's actually 120-180 dollars PER YEAR! Oh, and guess what . . . if you didn't pay the subscription? Then your 60 dollar game was a 60 dollar BRICK, because you couldn't do ANYTHING with it without paying that subscription fee. PGI is not only letting people play the basic game for free, but then they only charge real money for micro-transactions and pre-release sales for people to buy into and to help support the game. The only thing people truly pay money for in MWO is convenience.

And yet MMOs like Everquest had FAR FAR FAR more content then MWO does now. I defy you to tell me that MWO has even as much content in it then MW2 and its expansion did. which ..by the way.. they've already done "Expansions" its called "Mech Packs" which.. unlike most MMOs or the like, did not come with the risk of being totally worthless once they got done doing their terrible 'balancing'

You are paying 30 bucks for a mech that may run like crap the next month, be a total waste of time and money, and be utterly worthless. (I.E. ANYONE who got the Summoner and Gargoyle or things like the Highlander or 'pretty baby' ) It typically would take something a lot more catastrophic for a class or a few months worth of Subscribing to totally become worthless space you cant get a refund on in an MMO then it would MWO.

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4. Newer 60 dollar, single drop purchase games that do have multiplayer are leeching off of other services that they have nothing to do with. Xbox game? Guess what, you're paying a subscription to Microsoft for that multiplayer capability. PS3/4 game? Then you get minimal free and need to pay subscriptions to Sony for decent services. Either way, money is still being shelled out to pay for those servers that your "60 dollar" games are running their multiplayer on.

PC players, Nintendo and Playstation members get their online for free. Next?

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5. Even if you're not paying a subscription, then a small portion of that 60 dollars is getting shaved off to go to those console-makers or to something like a Steam service . . . and they can get away with it . . . because that tiny fraction is shaved off of every copy of every game sold. Not just that one game. Either way their servers get funded.

So you admit that the 60 dollars is enough to take and spread around to do what you need to with it? ok .. congrats and contradicting yourself.

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6. You want to talk about actually 100% polished games? Then you need to go back over two decades, to when games weren't patched, to when consoles and computers weren't hooked up to the internet for regular updates, and something needed to be completed, bug free, and polished, or the game flopped; because there was no second chance or patch day. Plenty of modern "polished" games you're referring to have things like day 1 patches to fix horrific game-breaking bugs. Know what would happen if that game was released 20+ years ago? The game would flop, all the copies would be returned, and the company would go bankrupt.

Metroid Prime series, Metal Gear Solid franchise, Halo, Gears of War, Okami, Crimson Skys, Jet Set Radio Future. Need I say more? it CAN be done, But I DO agree with you on one point that modern games abuse the patch system to much.. PGI is just abusing it a hell of a lot worse.

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PGI actually does a really damned good job with MWO, and I respect them for that. The best thing that happened for MWO's development was the shedding of IGP from the game. Ever since then, they've been making their deadlines, delivering on promises, and have been paying closer attention to their community. Things will only keep getting better. They just need time.

Now . . . insert the obligatory "young entitled whipper-snapper" rant to go on top of this, in regards to modern gaming.

They got a system entirely made for TERRAIN DESTRUCTION AND MODULAR WARFARE! Ever played Crysis? And they can't figure out how to make it where we can actually effect the terrain like has been done in EVERY OTHER OLD ASS FRICKEN MECHWARRIOR GAME EVER! You can't pull that "to much strain on the servers" because Bf3 had destructible walls and the like and runs just fricken fine Server wise. Oh and remember that pesky CRYSIS GAME? yeah.. you can blow stuff up and wreck things in the online of that too. ..hmmm.. and Crysis 1 wasn't even optimized.

No active or passive radar, No different way to show unit health, (the paper dall or the health graph) no rear view mirror, No actual omni pods, No actual way of balancing thanks to using weight instead of Battle Value, No other objectives besides "Shoot at the red doritos" no balance for under performing mechs or weapons, no real dynamic destruction, No point for the Unit funds they put in SEVERAL MONTHS AGO. No return of Knock down even though it could of been fixed.
They THREW AWAY Role Warfare that they said was gonna be the balance for all mech combat. Have made the graphics WORSE and yet the game runs WORSE. They didn't even find it necessary to ask for a colorblind option till JUST NOW. (kind of a standard thing with most games) They don't know how to implement an "ammo switch" in a cannon when Crysis ..the game the engine was built for.. lets you change ammo in your gun all the damn time. They can't find out how to make an interesting game mode, CW is just glorified death match and not at all indicative of Mech combat. They have said several times they are Satisfied with the way things are..

And finally..It is not until the outcry of the VERY people giving them their money gets SO BAD it can no longer be ignored.. That they try and fix something.

Edited by Seph MacLeod, 18 April 2015 - 11:37 AM.

[Brimbooze]

Well this sucks. I'm heading out of town on the 24th for my anniversary with the misses and won't be back till late Sunday. Won't be able to play until Monday afternoon. Missing the whole battle =/

[Xeno Phalcon]

Those rewards seem....tragic.
You fought in one of battletechs most important battles! Heres a banner.

Edited by Xeno Phalcon, 18 April 2015 - 12:02 PM.

[Khorban Thel]

Any chance we can align with Nova Cat, Diamond Shark, or Steel Viper for the battle, seeing as how these clans all participated? I've personally been waiting for Nova Cat to get back into MWO.

[Will9761]

Khorban Thel, on 18 April 2015 - 12:14 PM, said:

Any chance we can align with Nova Cat, Diamond Shark, or Steel Viper for the battle, seeing as how these clans all participated? I've personally been waiting for Nova Cat to get back into MWO.

Oh yes, please! If not now then after this event.

[Stealth Fox]

Brimbooze, on 18 April 2015 - 11:50 AM, said:

Well this sucks. I'm heading out of town on the 24th for my anniversary with the misses and won't be back till late Sunday. Won't be able to play until Monday afternoon. Missing the whole battle =/

You have a fun one bro. Congrats.

[Chowda]

I'm curious about Unit rewards.

Are there separate leaderboards for different sized units? Otherwise the largest units will control the leaderboards. Even a >100, 50-99, 20-49, <20 would allow smaller units a chance at the demonstrating how commited they are to the event.

[Bluttrunken]

Fantastic Event! That's all I got to say!

[Tank]

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ComStar challenged the Clan forces to a 'batchall': a ritualistic trial of combat which the honor-bound Clans would not refuse.

You don't say.... We have like 9.5 Clan warriors that actually know what "Bacthall" means...

So... What happened, medications finally kicked in?

​P.S. Give those pills to all of them, forcibly!

[Zerberus]

Somehow this announcement does nothing to pique my interest, and actually leaves a bit of a wierd taste in my mouth....

1. Tukayyid was an epic 3 week battle, and we`ll be condensing it into a weekend trip to Disneyland. For a modern day analogy, imagine if Operation Desert Storm (the "original" , from Jan17 1991 to Feb 28 1991, about 2x as long as Tukayyid) ) had been completed in 4 days. The basic concept seems somewhat ridiculous as a result...

To me this feels like MoH:AA, where you stormed the beaches of Normandy and finished D-Day in well under 10 minutes.... hardly a fulfilling game experience IMO.

2. I very distinctly remember the timeline being reset sometime last year. Which means Tukayyid is is suddenly happening in 3050?!?!?!?!. https://mwomercs.com/clock

3. 3 of the 7 clans that actively participated in Tukayyid are not yet even in the game, much less as playable factions.

And 4. CW itself still has issues that need to be ironed out ... Just like the incomplete LFR system was the bane of many incl. myself in the last challenge, those bugs and issues still present in CW, if left unadressed, will become the starship troopers sized "We eat little childern, and big ones, too" Bugs that thoroughly wreck the experience for many that will be trying CW for the first time. Thereby completely neutering what was "supposed" to be one of the prime features of the game.

With all due respect, Russ, Paul, and everyone else: If you screw this up, and I personally feel that there is almost no way that you CAN`T screw it up due to the scope of the matter and your comparatively limited resources, you may not be able to recover from it.

Edited by Zerberus, 18 April 2015 - 01:39 PM.

[Stealth Fox]

Zerberus, on 18 April 2015 - 01:31 PM, said:

With all due respect, Russ, Paul, and everyone else: If you screw this up, and I personally feel that there is almost no way that you CAN`T screw it up due to the scope of the matter and your comparatively limited resources, you may not be able to recover from it.

Indeed. I have a feeling this will be more then just a shot in the foot, the barrel is aiming more and more toward the head.

then again if they DO botch it, they might lose it, and if they lose it, someone GOOD can take a whack at it.

[Kenyon Burguess]

Seph MacLeod, on 18 April 2015 - 01:51 PM, said:

Indeed. I have a feeling this will be more then just a shot in the foot, the barrel is aiming more and more toward the head.

then again if they DO botch it, they might lose it, and if they lose it, someone GOOD can take a whack at it.

this is the end of phase one for cw creation. its a simple event with a simple reward. it has no bearing on the next phase and the map reset, nor does it have any influence on the eventual launch of CW live. this is a test to see how many squares they can generate and have ppl fight over for one weekend.

[Sereglach]

Cathy, on 18 April 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

Now while I don't really agree that all $60 games were complete units and better developed (I was on the Horizons Istaria beta, which is now back as a F2P)

I was also in that Beta. I knew one of the developers. Sadly, the game was really rough at the time, and you can't say it was a $60 complete game, because it was also going to depend on subscriptions. That makes it null and void over the debate of "complete $60 games". They had great ideas and ambitions to refine the game over time. In it's initial incarnation, they were never given the chance, as there were too many other big name MMO's at the time that just dwarfed it.

Cathy, on 18 April 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

I find your example about the size of the developement team PGI has, interesting, you say its large, others say it small, but this is a refreshing change to the usual, you can't expect the game to be developed quickly with a small team.

I didn't say they have a large team, I said they have a full team. They have everything needed to develop every aspect of the game. That could be one of each type of person, and that'd still be a full team. It's not a big team, but it is a full team. PGI is a relatively small team, of only 40-50 people, while other titles in development (Star Citizen is a wonderful example, because it's going even beyond AAA publisher scale) have over 300 people dedicated to a game for initial development.

Afterwards, the patch teams are extremely small, and don't even have a full team. They're a handful of people to cover glitches in code and whatnot, that will occasionally drag someone from another department into helping them with a fix, if needed. Planetside 2 is a good example of this. Since their launch they really only have a modest team fully working on the game, and drag in resources from other aspects of SOE when needed . . . look at the names in the credits for that game, they're involved in a lot of projects.

Cathy, on 18 April 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

I don't think any one, can ever expect PGI to work fast, that has been around since closed beta, but I think most of us would like more than the bare bones when we were told how great and complex CW was going to be.

There lies the real problem with this Game P.G.I can't get out the habit of talking big, and until they learn this, it causes big disapointments, and a ghost town called CW, that this 'great' event is not going to change, unless PGI produces something closer to the presentation.

Well, for one, there's LOTS of people in the player base that aren't touching CW right now, because the CW aspect of the game is tagged as a BETA. Regardless, PGI has a lot in the works, and they've been doing a great job of keeping their deadlines and drastically increasing development since the removal of IGP from the equation.

I think once Phase 3 hits, along with the more-than-likely phase 4, then CW is going to really explode. Many people (not yourself, you seem to realize that things take time) seem to think that this stuff happens like magic. There seems to be this running trend that just because an engine is capable of something that the code and gameplay materials are magically already there and would only take 3 minutes to implement.

[Sereglach]

Seph MacLeod, on 18 April 2015 - 11:17 AM, said:

Snip of self proclaimed omnipotence

Your reading comprehension needs work, as you take a great deal of things out of context and also fail to acknowledge everything written, merely taking the few words out that you want to glorify your own point of view.

You're the kind of person who will not be satisfied no matter what anyone says and are not worth responding any further to. The use of a meme video in a conversation shows that. Good day.

[eFTy]

Just because he used meme videos doesn't mean he didn't make some very valid points, especially re: destructible terrain, mech balance and game performance.

[G SE7EN7]

DarkMetalBlade, on 17 April 2015 - 06:58 PM, said:

This event had better have some really, REALLY juicy rewards at the end. If it doesn't, them I know which planet to stay the hell away from.

What!!! Thats just silly to say. The event will be remembered, why wouldnt you want to take part in it?

Ironwolf67, on 17 April 2015 - 07:10 PM, said:

Tukayyid? This means I'm going to have to jump into CW and give my wife a credit card for the weekend.

This guy knows

[BigBlue]

Ignoring the earlier posts. This sounds like a fun concept for the reboot.

[Asmosis]

Cathy, on 18 April 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

@sereglach

I personally would rather have a subscription game.

subscriptions do not work in the current MMO market (for new entrants). theres maybe a handful of MMO's that require a subscription like WoW or EVE that are successful but most older ones have moved to F2P model and those that do try to launch as subscriptions fail.

Take elder scrolls online, one of THE biggest names in gaming and a perfect fit for a MMO, with a massive following across all gaming platforms, failed. And had to change to F2P model or die. other big names over the years like Aion have done the same.

Now take MWO, a niche game for a niche market. theres no way it could have hoped to succeed on subscriptions and they are going about it absolutely the right way. early release at a premium and the optional subscription for bonus gold/exp route.

As for the event itself,

I'm not sure if I want to enter into the meat grinder again. while getting 30 match points in skirmish mode is a piece of cake, getting 80 points vs organized premades can be quite difficult sometimes with 2/3'rds of the team not reaching the requirements.

reducing the match point requirement to 50 or 60 (essentially making it trivial so long as your participate) would help encourage the solo players hoping into that grinder. Yes I did watch the town hall (all of it) so have an appreciation for why its setup like it is, and the obvious responses. LFG isn't going to help at all vs premades, but it will let players form 12 man teams (not groups) manually rather than relying on the MM to do it and getting bumped out of the queue, so matches should form faster.

I'm not asking for pug vs pug, I know that can't happen but just easing up a bit on the requirements so that you can still "win" while losing.

Edited by Asmosis, 18 April 2015 - 06:19 PM.

[Strykewolf]

Sounds interesting.

Hopefully get some good data for future adjustments/events, too.

[Setun]

xeromynd, on 17 April 2015 - 05:35 PM, said:

One of the most important battles in BT that, canonically, takes place over 20 days, is condensed into one weekend. We've had prize grab events that lasted longer.
:-/

Maybe I'm just bitter because I'll be away, and have been looking forward to this for a while.
Hope it's fun.

I unfortunately work the Friday - Sunday night that this event is taking place as well, so unless I deprive myself of sleep between my 12 hour shifts I won't be able to do this event either. =/