137 replies to this topic

[Sarlic]

They had a television spot if i recall. Or it was atleast commercial like on Youtube. Around 2012 though.

[LordNothing]

pgi's strategy is simply to milk it. do as little as possible to keep people buying packs. when income < operating costs, they shut it all down.

of course they have the funding to do great things. i see enough badges. but there is no will, no driving force. bandaids and half measures catered to the loudest whiners in the community. no far reaching goals or ambitions. no desire to perform their best. lots of effort in pruning their image, as if they are more concerned about politics within their community, the bare minumum to keep the masses from revolting.

at least the art department is competent, talented, and knows what they are doing. but it takes the rest of the team 6 months to change a number in an xml file to fix an obvious and long standing balance issue. they call it engineering, but thats data entry. hire some damn programmers already.

perhaps its not even that, perhaps the people who know how to get things done are simply told not to. i imagine they have a large sign on the wall with the words "minimum viable product" engraved into it that they point to every time someone wants to fix something or add something new.

Edited by LordNothing, 02 October 2015 - 10:57 AM.

[Phlinger]

TexAce, on 02 October 2015 - 10:32 AM, said:

You all misunderstand what I am saying.

No matter how good the game is, those tryhard BT fans CAN NOT BE HAPPY EVER.

It's them, not the game. The BT community consists of old dudes who just mock everything they see because it does not represent "their" vision of how it should be.

No game developer in the world is or will ever be able to please that sissy crowd.

For some people, the Tryhards, you are correct. For people like me? Hell, I keep the old Mektek packs on my desktop and Mechcommander2 is always installed. I play through these at least twice a year. For me, this new Battletech game, the one envisioned and laid out in detail on the kickstarter page, is seriously, a f****ing dream come true. Even with just the base game, this is something I will play for years.

If PGI could finally put out some PvE content where I can use the 'Mechs I have purchased, I'd be loving that too.

[Burktross]

I wish PGI pushed the warhammer off. I could've gotten two 20 dollar mechs packs, but now I'm stuck with one 40 dollar one

[GrimRiver]

I really think they should hold off on making mechs for a few months and focus all on core gameplay and add new features.

Also they need to really fix the low tier mechs and buff them so they aren't soo...crappy, like:

-Shadow hawks.

-Trebuchets.

-Vindicators.

-Dragons.

-Orions.

-Victors.

You know these mechs are super bad when you don't see any of them for months, well except a few trebuchets here and there but thats about it.

[BARBAR0SSA]

Big Tin Man, on 02 October 2015 - 09:43 AM, said:

So you're complaining that they currently have a total of 8 new mechs currently in development? The same as they've had for the last 12 months? There has been overlap between mech packs since wave 2/resistance 1.

Meanwhile, they've made a good number of solid back-end performance improvements (HSR, bone state rewind, etc), got new servers online for EU and Asia/Oceanic, revamped 3 maps with more revamps on the way, made a very good tutorial, rolled out several CW maps, and they're attempting to fix MM and global game balance. They've been working and cranking out a lot of stuff.

We'll see when new game modes/CW fixes come out, but to ignore the work of the past year is just, ignorant. They've been fixing the broken backend before building more content on an improved foundation. Mech development is their income, and has remained at a steady production rate. This isn't a bad path to take, nor is the sky falling.

Go read the roadmaps, every single one of them over past few months has added nothing to the game really.

I'm still super annoyed they wasted so much time changing the UI claiming it allowed them to do so much more with the game....and nothing nada zilch. More mechs have been added, no new game modes, no CW changes, along with there's ZERO plans for any actual content other than mechs, go read the october roadmap, there's some balance testing is about it, rest is mechs mechs mechs. I've spent several hundred on this game and I expect a lot more from it rather than being told to just grind out more cbills. The game is so stale it's absolutely no fun to play at all, best times I had was when smoke jags were pushing for terra, lots of fun then actual strategy and tactics needed, planned distractions.

[ThisMachineKillsFascists]

Let it flow guys. let the feeling get outta your soul which you kept secretly inside you since few years.

[Bishop Steiner]

Night Thastus, on 02 October 2015 - 06:30 AM, said:

Hey all!

You may have just heard about the release of the Warhammer for pre-order.

Some of you might be quite excited, and that's understandable. Unseen are always something to enjoy.

However, this is proving to be a truly slippery slope with PGI.

There are three other 'Mech packs that still haven't fully released yet. (And these are just the pre-order release dates, not even the c-bill or MC releases!)

Resistance 2:

• Crab: October 6th, 2015
  
• Wolfhound: October 20th, 2015

Origins IIC:

• Orion IIC : December 15th
  
• Highlander IIC : December 15th
  
• Hunchback IIC : December 15th
  
• Jenner IIC : December 15th

Marauder:

• Marauder (all variants): December 1st 2015

On top of all that un-released content, they pile on:


Warhammer:

• Warhammer (all variants): January 16th 2016

I might be alone here, but I don't like this. They are dedicating far too much time and effort into 'Mech packs, and far too little into new content.


I've been playing since closed beta, and sadly, with the sole exception of CW (which is currently dead, RIP), we haven't gotten a single new game-mode.

Don't get me wrong, there has been new content, but it's been slow, buggy, or otherwise held-back.

When is Phase III of CW again? Wasn't that supposed to be months ago? Now it's scheduled for around mid 2016? What is this garbage?

What happened to the new assault game-mode?

What happened to the leadership boards?

What happened to PVE content?

What happened to scout missions?

What happened to the steam release?

When are we going to see the "autodetect: NO" screens finally begone? They say they have the tech to do PiP (Picture in picture) now!

When are flamers/MGs/AC-2's going to get a balance pass?

Why not dedicate some of this time to fixing the ammo-switching on LB-X's?

When will ballistics get some help? (200 damage per ton to start, 1.3x damage per pellet on LB-X, etc)

When is this rebalance finally going to get another PTS? When will it finally be released?

The bottom line is that I feel like far too much of PGI's resources are being pushed at 'Mech development and sales.

Don't get me wrong, I like new 'Mechs. I really do. However, when those come at the cost of gameplay, it hits me wrong. I'm aware that there are "teams" who work on different parts of the game, perhaps one for art, one for sound, etc, etc. However, it feels like somehow all of their time is being used up on this god-damn cashgrab.

And you know who's fault it is?

Partially PGI's, for taking advantage, but more ours for buying the packs.

I know the grind is real, everyone. I'm aware some of these 'Mechs might be very close to you. However, I think we need to send a message with our wallets that 'Mech packs are NOT number 1 priority, and that gameplay should come first!

and what...they shouldn't prepare mechs for upcoming months? Cuz that's all they are doing..they are coming, whether they offer loaded preorder packs or not.

[NocturnalBeast]

So much childish whining about PGI selling things that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY TO PLAY THE GAME! Seriously, let them sell stuff to the people who can afford it and want to buy these packs so they can have the money to keep the game going and keep the resources to add to the game. This irritates me as much as the seething jealousy that some people seem to have for NGNG, who cares if they are on PGI's payroll or not? The anger against NGNG mostly seems to come from other self-important bloggers and streamers who are jealous that PGI does not pay them too.

[Dephylr]

But, mechpacks are content. Are you not content? By the way, all the features OP wants costs money and the best way to make money according to PGI is to pull them nostalgia strings #realtalk #notsaltyenough

Edited by Dephylr, 02 October 2015 - 11:26 AM.

[Spleenslitta]

RedDragon, on 02 October 2015 - 10:20 AM, said:

The issue is that PGI mainly consists of those guys making new mechs. IIRC Russ even showed some numbers one day.
So basically you are financing guys whose job is to sell you mechs while one lonely coder tries to put the nonsense Paul comes up with into digital code. No wonder there is no progress.

And we already proposed many additional ways for them to make money, such as customizable pilot skins, which in return would even add to immersion, not like the ugly cockpit trinkets or the horrible war horns. Same goes for custom hangars. But that would mean actual work for their money instead of just doing the same thing over and over again. And exactly this is why it's a minimally viable product.

Edit: Or like Robot Kenshiro above me said: Mission packs, single player campaign, whatever. There are many ways to make money and advance the game in one swoop. But if all they have to do is make more mechs and you are buying them, why should they change anything?

That's one way to look at it. If the part about PGI having so few coders is true then i think we should be worried.
As a matter of fact...we should be very worried.

[Big Tin Man]

shad0w4life, on 02 October 2015 - 11:01 AM, said:

Go read the roadmaps, every single one of them over past few months has added nothing to the game really.

I'm still super annoyed they wasted so much time changing the UI claiming it allowed them to do so much more with the game....and nothing nada zilch. More mechs have been added, no new game modes, no CW changes, along with there's ZERO plans for any actual content other than mechs, go read the october roadmap, there's some balance testing is about it, rest is mechs mechs mechs. I've spent several hundred on this game and I expect a lot more from it rather than being told to just grind out more cbills. The game is so stale it's absolutely no fun to play at all, best times I had was when smoke jags were pushing for terra, lots of fun then actual strategy and tactics needed, planned distractions.

I agree that PGI hasn't made headway in changing up gameplay. They added/revamped a couple maps to both normal and CW, changed assault back to no turrets, and fixed hit detection. I get it, gameplay has been stale. Hell, I took a couple month break because of this. Maybe you should too.

But to say that PGI hasn't done anything, that's just blatantly not true. They've been fixing up the duct tape and bubblegum that has held the game together, which isn't a glamorous job, but it needed doing before expanding things and going to steam. CW phase 3 has been in the works for a long while now, which from the sounds of it (hopefully) will make CW worth playing. I have a feeling Russ is aiming for another xmas bombshell (i.e. Steam, CW3, and re-balancing) on the schedule.

Russ even hinted that if this community was mature enough to give up game mode selection, developing more game modes would be very likely to happen. But we can't have that because of the forum QQ'ing because someone never ever wants to play skirmish (hint: every game mode is skirmish). The population isn't high enough to do anything else here without blowing MM times through the roof. So look in the mirror long and hard before you cry about not having more game modes.

[C E Dwyer]

Sarlic, on 02 October 2015 - 09:04 AM, said:

Would it suprise you if i already threw money at my screen before it went live on Kickstarter?

Keep in mind they're two different games.

MWO is the typical game to waste your drunk night on, rage at your screen, wait and waste a fuckton of your time for a match and then proceed to leave the game after you get killed. Repetitive arena shooter.

What's not helping i got a bad taste for obsoleted mechs. Atlas and now Orions.

Battletech (Turn based) is more lore connected, pilot connected, campaign connected and above of all Battletech connected. All things i am missing here. That game will rock the scene if it turns out to be as expected.

I hope that it does, but we all thought that about MWO, plenty of people that now think its very bad, a couple years ago claimed MWO was the best battle tech game ever

[Mystere]

Anjian, on 02 October 2015 - 07:25 AM, said:

CW is unsustainable at this point. I don't see any economic reason to put more work on it any longer. Likely Russ saw that too, around the time when the last map Vitric Forge came out. There were supposed to be 12 maps for CW, one for each slice of the planet.

Better to put your efforts and resources where 90% of your player base is playing at. Not every idea is a good one and sometimes you have to admit your losses.

Then PGI should declare as such and let the chips fall where they may. Then let's see how many leave and find out if PGI can survive that exodus.

I dare the playerbase to force PGI to say so.

Edited by Mystere, 02 October 2015 - 01:35 PM.

[MrJeffers]

Ghogiel, on 02 October 2015 - 08:33 AM, said:

http://mwomercs.com/...dpost__p__74805

pwnt

People keep saying that thinking it's some PGI term. It's not. It's a development methodology term that predates MWO by over a decade.

EDIT:

To expand on that - Minimum viable product, also known as minimum required features, are the set of things that need to be included for a sale able version 1.0 product.

To all those pointing at HBS and the Kickstarter you can see *exactly* what their MVP tiers are as they are all tied to funding goals. Skirmish mode only is the MVP. Everything above that are added features that add time and money, but they can ship at skirmish only level if that's all they got.

Edited by MrJeffers, 02 October 2015 - 01:45 PM.

[Mystere]

ThisMachineKillsFascists, on 02 October 2015 - 08:56 AM, said:

Thats why bt games goal is only 2.5m for now and it promises you already much more mwo will ever achieve. nice try

Turn-based gameplay is not something I would consider as "more". I think it's a retrogression.

[TLBFestus]

ThisMachineKillsFascists, on 02 October 2015 - 08:25 AM, said:

aha interresting. If calling this game minimal viable, what else is that than bashing?

Honesty?

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

@OP:

1 - New mechs are new content.

2 - Their mech development team doesn't work on other stuff. If they aren't putting out mechs, they're either laid off or idle.

3 - Mech packs fund everything else.

[Trystan Thorne]

The reality is that Mech funds only fund Mechs and nothing else sadly.

I do believe that PGI is passionate about Battletech. I mean their brilliant Mech designs are proof.
I also believe that they try their best to improve this game in every aspect (and not just more Mech's).

I have no issues of PGI developing more Mechs, but I suspect though that beside the Mech design team, the other teams are either too small or (sorry don't take this personal guys) not talented enough.

If they can't do such easy wins like introducing stock/trial matches or a Solaris map then we surely can't expect them to do stuff like Single Player campaigns which would also be a big money earner.

A pity, at it's core MWO is a brilliant game. Not many multiplayer games match the thrill of a MWO battle (when you actually get an even battle for a change). But MWO could be so much more.

[SuomiWarder]

I have no problems with them cranking out mechs. I assume they are getting some money from the battletech game for using PGIs models for a double dip.

What concerns me is that I see little evidence that the money they are taking is actually paying for coding work on changing and improving the game. Don't know if they can't agree on a plan, can't find the talent, are actually just banking the money for the eventual personal gain of a few, don't care, no one is driving the bus, have some crazy secret plan they will drop on us when it is ready - or what the heck they are doing.

I want my darned four person scout CW missions. They don't have the recode the universe for that. They can use the same maps they have. I want persistent unit assets in an ongoing community warfare campaign. Much harder - not holding my breath that a team with money in their pocket can manage to match what many unfunded folks did for years in the MW4 league community.