Grayson Sortek, on 06 October 2015 - 04:21 AM, said:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Sincerely,
Major Component of the Playerbase
Nice read. However, this is the case with many F2P games and, honestly, it's been pretty obvious we're just playing a game-in-development since the days of Closed Beta.
In fact, if a game like this would normally take 4-5 years to develop (which we are currently moving up on) and to come out in a relatively finished state, what we have here is an even slower development process. MWO is an odd-one-out, though.
Started with a publisher, ditched it. Had repair/rearm mechanics, ditched those...and honestly, MWO has the most forgiving economy of any F2P game I've seen and certainly the most forgiving of the match based arena games that I know of. The very nature of the game's combat mechanics are unique - especially when it comes to receiving damage - everything is ablative, there's very little RNG involved.
Every vehicle is (more or less) usable (unlike in games of World of Tanks etc. where a single mistake will lead to your death more often than not) and losing pretty much means nothing - you don't lose currency at any rate. It's not quite like PlanetSide 2, for example where death rarely even amounts to anything but that's a different type of F2P game altogether, though the development process has been equally as nuts.
In any case, MANY F2P games that have been PvP only so far have figured it out at last and are starting to roll out PvE content, and in some cases such as Armored Warfare pretty much have it from the start because it's easier to develop off the bat when the code is still fresh.
To me, the increased level of immersion and interactivity in things like the new mechwarrior academy means good times for the future but still - I thought that after all these years of F2P games since like...2009, the gaming community would have known better by now.
EDIT: I forgot to add that, in all honesty, in the past year or so, PGI have really and noticeably stepped up their game imo, even if its like...small things. We used to get patch notes AFTER the downtime for updates has started...now we get them the previous day. Obviously, things have changed internally at PGI for the better. I hope that, having established for themselves a more balanced internal structure, they can now work on a more stable external one - despite what people are saying, many of us have and will continue to support the game and I hope PGI values this - I think it's safe to say that communication (one of the community's pet peeves) has also stepped up. We're starting to see what seemed to be impossible but in retrospect, now seems plausible - "classic" mech designs.
I mean, who knows? The project never involved any single player content. At this point, it's too much to ask for. But I'm willing to bet PGI has plans for a classic single-player campaign MechWarrior.
Edited by Edweird, 06 October 2015 - 05:09 AM.