62 replies to this topic

[Impyrium]

I really don't think the answer ever has been in trying to get the community behind something. It's a noble thought, that changes to a game should be what the community and playerbase wants. But it's not that simple.

Put simply, the community isn't necessarily right. And so very rarely all agree on something. Often it seems we all want a different game.

What the game needs is a creative developer or designer that's willing to think outside of the box. PGI gets the job done but rarely have I ever felt like they've tried to tackle issues in an imaginative way, many a time it just seems like a minimal-viable effort thing towards new features or fixes.

Honestly the tutorial was the first time in a long time I felt like PGI had done something genuinely new and creative.

[Mycrus]

Dingo Red, on 02 September 2015 - 09:45 PM, said:

I really don't think the answer ever has been in trying to get the community behind something. It's a noble thought, that changes to a game should be what the community and playerbase wants. But it's not that simple.

Put simply, the community isn't necessarily right. And so very rarely all agree on something. Often it seems we all want a different game.

What the game needs is a creative developer or designer that's willing to think outside of the box. PGI gets the job done but rarely have I ever felt like they've tried to tackle issues in an imaginative way, many a time it just seems like a minimal-viable effort thing towards new features or fixes.

Honestly the tutorial was the first time in a long time I felt like PGI had done something genuinely new and creative.

Tutorial was good but i wouldnt call it new or creative...

AAA games have long moved to pve and the first few missions to give a tutorial to players... RTS games have done this where they progressivrely roll out units... games like assassins creed take 1/3 of their story to roll out the tutorial...

[Yellonet]

Oh man, this is a depressing place. So much bitterness everywhere.
You can hardly say anything here it seems before it stirs up some old **** and someone starts to moan; buh hu, PGI never listens!
Well no **** Sherlock, nobody wants to listen to a bunch of crybabies!

To me it seems that PGI have been reaching out and are actually willing to listen if we as a community can present ideas that many players stand behind.

Unfortunately it seems that most people here are only willing to whine about years past perceived wrongs, not to do anything actively to try to influence how the game develops today.
Furthermore, anyone who tries to go against the syndicate of tears should be ridiculed and hounded so that they also won't try do do anything.... foolish.

Edited by Yellonet, 03 September 2015 - 03:02 AM.

[KharnZor]

Yellonet, on 03 September 2015 - 03:01 AM, said:

Oh man, this is a depressing place. So much bitterness everywhere.
You can hardly say anything here it seems before it stirs up some old **** and someone starts to moan; buh hu, PGI never listens!
Well no **** Sherlock, nobody wants to listen to a bunch of crybabies!

To me it seems that PGI have been reaching out and are actually willing to listen if we as a community can present ideas that many players stand behind.

Unfortunately it seems that most people here are only willing to whine about years past perceived wrongs, not to do anything actively to try to influence how the game develops today.
Furthermore, anyone who tries to go against the syndicate of tears should be ridiculed and hounded so that they also won't try do do anything.... foolish.

Oh please lets not be overly dramatic.
Its only a relative few that are as bad as you describe. And if you feel that strongly about it then just put them on your ignore list.

[Cyberiad]

Forums are a good way of finding out what the problems are in your game definitely and people's concerns here should be heard by the developer. However the suggestions of forumgoers aren't always what's best for the game in the long term. I think an example of this was the whole 3rd person view scandal where having a 3rd person view for the game probably would have been better for the game in the long run. I'm not sure if PGI has ever hired any game design consultants in the past but I think it probably would have been a better idea to get professional advice. A lot of the design decisions made in the past were pretty convoluted (ghost heat, guass charge, etc).

Doing research can help as well. There are a lot of videos and written white papers which discuss what makes a successful free-to-play game. Examples include:
http://famousaspect....om-gdc-next-14/
http://www.gdcvault....e-Wrong-Way-Age
http://www.gamasutra...es_.php?print=1

I remember one of the comments from the Microsoft presentation was that while it's possible for most free-to-play games to have what's called a soft launch (meaning not all game features are present during launch and are added as the game recieves revenue to continue development), free-to-play games of established brands cannot. I think this would have been very relevant to every "launch" event that PGI has made so far.

[Siegegun]

Yellonet- Obviously you are new. It is not just that everyone here is a bitter negative nancy, its that many of us have been here for 3 years plus. In those three years PGI has listened to the player base very little. They only really even started to when they bought out IGP at the end of last year. That is a long time to be ignored.

That said, I agree with some posters in this thread... I do not think most of the people have balanced ideas, even if they think they are balanced, only PGI has the real data on stats. Quite frankly if some of the ideas I have seen on these forums were implemented I would stop playing.

[Lugh]

Yellonet, on 02 September 2015 - 04:25 PM, said:

That's true. But I didn't say anything about a sure way to get the features you want.
But if we work together maybe we can get some of what we want.

That hasn't happened in the life of the game so far. What makes you think it will happen now.

[Yellonet]

Siegegun, on 03 September 2015 - 08:22 AM, said:

Yellonet- Obviously you are new. It is not just that everyone here is a bitter negative nancy, its that many of us have been here for 3 years plus. In those three years PGI has listened to the player base very little. They only really even started to when they bought out IGP at the end of last year. That is a long time to be ignored.

That said, I agree with some posters in this thread... I do not think most of the people have balanced ideas, even if they think they are balanced, only PGI has the real data on stats. Quite frankly if some of the ideas I have seen on these forums were implemented I would stop playing.

This is exactly why I wrote that we should not provide the detailed solutions, that's PGI's job, but we must point out the problems as we see them.

[TLBFestus]

Yellonet, on 03 September 2015 - 08:30 AM, said:

This is exactly why I wrote that we should not provide the detailed solutions, that's PGI's job, but we must point out the problems as we see them.

My gawd man....that's been done for the past 3 years. At the start of closed beta, even early open beta, there was tons of thoughtful, reasoned, well expressed analysis of the game by players who were all excited to be in collaboration with PGI.

The problem was that not only did almost all this ideas/suggestions go unimplemented, which is fine because really 99% should be ignored, but they went unacknowledged, and PGI/IGP was perceived to actually go back on things that were considered to most of us who funded this to be fundamental and sacrosanct.

Their response to the justified reaction of a significant portion of the community (which included far more than a few loud voices as some would have you think) was poorly thought out and just further fanned the flames of resentment.

TL/DR version:

PGI, through a series of poor decisions created the hostile community environment that they have been digging out from for the past 2 years. If you think the current state of affairs in the forums is bad, and it's not, you should have been around 2 years ago.

[Yellonet]

TLBFestus, on 03 September 2015 - 08:47 AM, said:

My gawd man....that's been done for the past 3 years. At the start of closed beta, even early open beta, there was tons of thoughtful, reasoned, well expressed analysis of the game by players who were all excited to be in collaboration with PGI.

The problem was that not only did almost all this ideas/suggestions go unimplemented, which is fine because really 99% should be ignored, but they went unacknowledged, and PGI/IGP was perceived to actually go back on things that were considered to most of us who funded this to be fundamental and sacrosanct.

Their response to the justified reaction of a significant portion of the community (which included far more than a few loud voices as some would have you think) was poorly thought out and just further fanned the flames of resentment.

TL/DR version:

PGI, through a series of poor decisions created the hostile community environment that they have been digging out from for the past 2 years. If you think the current state of affairs in the forums is bad, and it's not, you should have been around 2 years ago.

There we go again, only bringing up the past as an excuse for being bitter.
As far as I understand it's been better since PGI got rid of IGP.
PGI are doing something about the ACH ahead of c-bill release, and there were many bittervets that said that wouldn't happen.
So why not drop that old baggage and try to think new?

[KraftySOT]

Seriously #savemwo is the only thing that even came close to working.

[Almond Brown]

Yellonet, on 02 September 2015 - 04:25 PM, said:

That's true. But I didn't say anything about a sure way to get the features you want.
But if we work together maybe we can get some of what we want.

The problem is not so much players not getting what they want, just read the Archived Patch notes to see much has been changed and the players have been the spearhead in most cases (ranting and QQ'ing about the issues aside). The problem is many do not get "exactly" what they wanted and from then on they become "MWO Islanders" and forever hate PGI.

How dare PGI not take their well written and thought out ideas, and apply the 700 man hours to do it "exactly my way".

P.S. This is not new to gaming Forums btw. Games are Patched and the ******** and gripers soldier on while the rest play the newly revised game game, simply because it is a game they enjoy, flawed and all. Wow that sounds a lot like any long term relationship... LOL

P.S.S. We should do a Poll on how many MWO players are divorcee's. That may be a very telling stat. Not everyone always gets exactly what they think they are getting, despite appearances.

Edited by Almond Brown, 03 September 2015 - 09:19 AM.

[Almond Brown]

KraftySOT, on 02 September 2015 - 06:16 PM, said:

Get a heck of alot of players behind you, mass exodus to another place, demand PGI give you attention, come back and work with them on the solution.

So far thats the only way that has worked.

Or those who are truly frustrated, they just walk away themselves and save the rest of us Forum-goers the ugly fanfare of having to say good-bye 35 times only to have the door re-open yet again and the same whines ring out all over.

[KharnZor]

KraftySOT, on 03 September 2015 - 09:13 AM, said:

Seriously #savemwo is the only thing that even came close to working.

umm...no.

[KraftySOT]

Name one other thing that made the company massively shift policy and address some concerns.

The only other thing thats ever worked, was if Paul or Russ dropped into a game and 'felt like' something was off. Thats how we got lurmaggedons,lurm nerfs, and got rid of knockdowns.

Literally until you rub their noses in it, they dont see it/are focused on something else.

Its not their fault, they arent bad people, they get tunnel vision on features and additions that are in their window, they have a small staff, they cant do everything.

Until you let them know in no uncertain terms that a huge portion of the player base is unhappy with some particular aspect, they arent going to do anything but whats on the 'big board'.

Edited by KraftySOT, 03 September 2015 - 09:45 AM.

[M4rtyr]

I Zeratul I, on 02 September 2015 - 04:49 PM, said:

I for one am glad the backseat developer mentality many posters have is ignored.

Their intentions might be good. But the majority of them lack the background to know what is good or bad in a game, how to achieve game balance or what good game mechanics are. They argue from a self entitled perspective that everything in life is obligated to be "so easy a caveman could do it". That they can walk in off the street and do the job game developers do, without having to go through any of the requisite courses or make any real effort to educate themselves other than playing a few video games.

So I have to ask, what makes you think you know any better if a suggestion is a good mechanic or not?

I will grant there are alot of suggestions that people don't understand would be too hard to implement, would break other mechanics, or just plain wouldn't be good for the game. But there are many others that would be completely effective.

What makes my opinion any better? I was starting to type out those reasons but I'm not trying to be Mr. bigshot.

Bottom line is there are some very intelligent people that play games, and you never know who's lurking in forums that may actually be a designer or developer. The biggest problem to suggestions on forums is even if it's a damn good idea if it messes with the current balance (which it always will) the people that like the current meta will say even the best idea is crap just because they don't want to change.

PGI should pay attention to rants and suggestions because -some- of them are good info. Just because not all of it us useful doesn't mean people should ignore the discussions. As much BS as you'll find in any forums you'll usually find something meaningfull in most threads, might just be one post but that's why you pay community managers. To get and share information from/with the community.

[Almond Brown]

Lugh, on 03 September 2015 - 08:29 AM, said:

That hasn't happened in the life of the game so far. What makes you think it will happen now.

Let's think back a bit and see if an example of why PGI should NOT listen to this Community, or the Vocal minority. Let's try 3PV. Remember how the "Community" railed against it and said it would literally "ruin" MWO, before even seeing a basic proposal from PGI, remember that the "Community" was dead wrong in the end, as 3PV is now something only a Newb would use and they get spotted and ridiculed as such on the field for doing so.

If only the "Community" had had the balls to come back and apologize the PGI for being so wrong, but NO! The arrogant Leetz never apologize, even when they are wrong. That was a BAD bridge to Burn, but burnt down it was.

So don't say PGI started this whole hate fest. The "Community" at that time, those who did not know SFA about the 3PV addition at the time but thought they knew better than PGI all the while they simply crashed and burned and pissed away any good faith the "community" might of had.

PGI doesn't need to make up, the "Community" need to go first for being such DB's way back then. Then perhaps both sides can bury that ugly hatchet everyone seems to carry around here just looking for a place to jam it into.

[M4rtyr]

Yellonet, on 03 September 2015 - 09:02 AM, said:

There we go again, only bringing up the past as an excuse for being bitter.
As far as I understand it's been better since PGI got rid of IGP.
PGI are doing something about the ACH ahead of c-bill release, and there were many bittervets that said that wouldn't happen.
So why not drop that old baggage and try to think new?

Well of course the past gets brought up.. the state of the game is poor but the worst part about it is that it was almost no different then it was in open beta when I started.

Weapon balance was and is a joke.
There is minimal content, aside from all the mechs they want people to buy.
There never has been a meaningful heat system.
etc

When a game has these sorts of issues and they have not been resolved in 3 years what in the world to expect people to focus on. I can't speak for all negative types here, but myself and others I'm sure love Btech and Mechwarrior and just want this to be an awesome game but over the years they've made minimal progress in making things better.

The tutorial is the first glimmer of hope that they are making significant changes to how they are updating the game and actually putting effort into it.

[sycocys]

Yellonet, on 02 September 2015 - 04:25 PM, said:

That's true. But I didn't say anything about a sure way to get the features you want.
But if we work together maybe we can get some of what we want.

Buying out the game is still the only way to get it developed at any time in the next decade.

[Mystere]

KraftySOT, on 03 September 2015 - 09:43 AM, said:

Name one other thing that made the company massively shift policy and address some concerns.

The only other thing thats ever worked, was if Paul or Russ dropped into a game and 'felt like' something was off. Thats how we got lurmaggedons,lurm nerfs, and got rid of knockdowns.

Literally until you rub their noses in it, they dont see it/are focused on something else.

Its not their fault, they arent bad people, they get tunnel vision on features and additions that are in their window, they have a small staff, they cant do everything.

Until you let them know in no uncertain terms that a huge portion of the player base is unhappy with some particular aspect, they arent going to do anything but whats on the 'big board'.

Just because a organized bunch of goons bullied a developer in-game does not automatically mean the player base agrees with their complaints.