96 replies to this topic

[AnimeFreak40K]

I have been going back and forth on the Steam with some of the folks there (some of whom are very salty) regarding some long-dead issues (which I won’t go into here, because there is no reason to do so and is not the purpose of this posting).

One of my stances regarding any sort of rage towards the developers of this game (or, well, anything for that matter) is that doing so is pretty much pointless, especially from a logical standpoint. I mean if I get up and start rolling my face over my keyboard in an effort to tell PGI how terrible they are at what they’re doing is wrong…will that actually have any effect? No, no it won’t. If I get a gazillion people to back me up (or I join with them, whatever) and do the same thing, will that have any effect? Probably… but that’s only if PGI lets us have an effect. They don’t have to though.

…regardless of whether or not this is an accurate assessment is not exactly the point I am trying to build up to here.

Where I am going with all of this is that it seems that there are people who think that by getting angry and lashing out as they are could have the positive effect of “it might get the franchise into a better company’s hands sooner”

While I can see that people may think that this is the case, or that this is how things work, but the fact of the matter is that this is quite simply not true. Here’s the cold reality:

- A company (in this case) PGI sees a franchise that is sitting around and collecting dust (in this case, MechWarrior Online) and figures there is some merit in doing something with this franchise and seek to resurrect it and present it to a modern audience.
- PGI (continuing with the example) hopes that by making MechWarrior (again, continuing with the example) new again (remember, nothing had been done with the MechWarrior for about 10 years or more).
- If PGI is successful, the owner of the license (Microsoft) would see that there is, in fact merit in continuing to invest in and develop the franchise. Even if Microsoft doesn’t feel that it is worth the effort themselves, there is the distinct possibility that other companies will see the merit and petition Microsoft to do what PGI did (that is, make a new MechWarrior title)
- Conversely, if PGI fails, outside companies would see that it is in fact *not* worth the effort to invest in and develop the franchise. How could they? From their perspective the one company that tried in the last 10 years (or so) that did failed. This effectively means that MechWarrior could end up being put back on the shelf for another 10 years.

To be quite clear, I am NOT defending PGI, their actions, decisions or the direction they are taking the game. What I am saying is that if PGI is unsuccessful with MWO, it is very possible that it will be 10+ years before there is another MechWarrior game because no other company would want to take the chance of touching the franchise.
This self-defeating fandom

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

I remember seeing your posts on the Steam forums. I must say honestly that I usually only give them a skim since they always tend to be pretty massive posts in a forum which generally acts concisely, but I do agree with what you are saying there.

Many of the more vocal players of this game, such as those on the forums that are you referencing really say this game is much worse than it really is, they don't give it a chance either from some very old action of PGI's, being mad over the state of MW:LL, or for the hope that if PGI dies out that someone else will take it up and make it better.

As far as I see it, PGI dropping MWO leads us to an unknown as to what will happen to the series, if the next will be better or worse or even exist, and leaves us with the known that another thing won't be around for at the very least years while development happens, if it happens. What I know as far as PGI continuing to make money is that they will be able to expand the game and add more and more features to improve the game, and add many of the things people could wish for while keeping the game's general format. If PGI makes the series popular enough more developers might want to start working with it, as we've seen already with that new turn based Battletech game coming out.

[AnimeFreak40K]

Dakota1000, on 03 January 2016 - 05:53 PM, said:

I remember seeing your posts on the Steam forums. I must say honestly that I usually only give them a skim since they always tend to be pretty massive posts in a forum which generally acts concisely, but I do agree with what you are saying there.

That is completely understandable, and sometimes I find myself going back and re-reading what I wrote and going "man, that's a huge wall of text! Holy crap, do I not have anything better to do?" but then I realize that I feel that when trying to be objective, it's hard (at least to me) to be concise. But I do thank you for your support!

Dakota1000, on 03 January 2016 - 05:53 PM, said:

As far as I see it, PGI dropping MWO leads us to an unknown as to what will happen to the series, if the next will be better or worse or even exist, and leaves us with the known that another thing won't be around for at the very least years while development happens, if it happens. What I know as far as PGI continuing to make money is that they will be able to expand the game and add more and more features to improve the game, and add many of the things people could wish for while keeping the game's general format. If PGI makes the series popular enough more developers might want to start working with it, as we've seen already with that new turn based Battletech game coming out.

Exactly! I actually see myself as being one of those people being pulled into BattleTech thanks to MechWarrior Online.

From my perspective, I knew very little about BattleTech, but I remember seeing some of the artwork and finding that I just couldn't stand it, and because I felt all of the physical designs of the mechs were bad, I just gave the whole thing a pass. Then comes along MWO and I see that a bunch of the mechs that I remember looking stupid as hell actually LOOKING cool made me want to get into this game...which I did. Then I hear about HBS making their own iteration of BattleTech using the artwork and designs of the mechs in MWO I was like "oh, man! a strategy game that uses sexy-looking giant stompy robots? Sign me up!"

This is why I want PGI to succeed...because if PGI succeeds, then by extension, MWO succeeds which then, in turn leads investors to feel that MechWarrior is a viable franchise and will then do more with it.

[LordBraxton]

PGI was already successful, why are we talking about 'if it will succeed or not?'

MWO has already peaked, lets get real. It looks and feels more and more dated every month, and I would consider it a mild success considering how much PGI gets for their mechs while offering SO SO little in terms of game development progress.

MWO will never 'take off,' it's far too late for that. While I am a serious 'bittervet,' because I HATE where this game has gone since the golden glory days of Beta, Im glad that PGI managed to make money selling their mechs, and am sad that the game will never have huge appeal.

Acting like MWO could become considerably more popular in the future is ridiculous though... I've never seen or heard of a game 'taking off' 3+ years after its release.

Enjoy it while its here, and hope someone more competent gets the rights 10 years from now. Im pretty young for a CBT fan, so Ill be around for plenty more mechwarrior.

I just hope the next game is set in 3025.

Edited by LordBraxton, 03 January 2016 - 06:32 PM.

[MadcatX]

LordBraxton, on 03 January 2016 - 06:32 PM, said:

MWO will never 'take off,' it's far too late for that. While I am a serious 'bittervet,' because I HATE where this game has gone since the golden glory days of Beta, Im glad that PGI managed to make money selling their mechs, and am sad that the game will never have huge appeal.

Acting like MWO could become considerably more popular in the future is ridiculous though... I've never seen or heard of a game 'taking off' 3+ years after its release.

Two quick things:

1) The golden age of Beta is bull. For all the current issues the game has, it does not compare to how broken things were in Beta both meta-wise and from a technical aspect. It was new back then and I did have a blast but I make no illusions that it was objectively a better experience.

2) I never expected this game to have a huge appeal even if everything went perfect (CW launching properly, everything being balanced, etc.) and really doubted that a niche genre such as a mech sim would. As for the whole "waiting X years for someone more competent to come along", I'm sure they'll give us a great MechAssault 3! ;-)

[dezgra]

MechAssualt 3 mean THREE times the RAGNAROK

Edited by dezgra, 03 January 2016 - 09:04 PM.

[Wintersdark]

Yeah, the "glory days of beta" is total ********. I've been here since 2012, and while I loved this game during beta it was horseshit in a lot of ways.

Game breaking bugs (not like what people pretend are now, but very common literally game breaking bugs). 8v8 with teams of vets vs. Solo pugs as the ONLY game mode. R&R ensuring new players would struggle for ages to get started, then be unable to afford the good builds... So the vets with good builds would continue to win against them (circle of crap right there). Horrifically bad tiny maps. No social tools. No units. No voip. No destructible terrain. Horrible performance. Ridiculous lag shields, no HSR.

The list goes on and on.

Has MWO peaked? Maybe. Maybe not. People have been saying its peaked for 3 years. I don't see any reason to give them any more credence now than I did when I started.

But in my experience, MWO has been doing just fine for the duration. It's probably not going to grow dramatically - maybe not much at all. But everyone has always known this would never be a LoL or even WoT competitor. Slower stompy robot battles are a decidedly more niche setting than silly shiny MOBA's and historical tanks/warships/planes.

---

Ultimately, MWO has been successful. It must be, for PGI to have renewed the license. That costs, if MWO was failing, that would have been a stupid choice. If its successful, its successful right now as tired, bored vets aside (look, if you're not little children, you should understand that any game will lose its luster for you after several years) the game is packed full of people. Sales are clearly good - I see LOTS of paid mechs all the time as Packs release. Good sales = profit. Profit after three years running is a great thing.


And, as you said: if they are successful, they'll hold onto their rights. If they fail, nobody else is going to bother with a niche property that too hard to make work.

[Mycrus]

Whining about pgi helps about as much as whining against whiners...

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

MadcatX, on 03 January 2016 - 08:43 PM, said:

Two quick things:

1) The golden age of Beta is bull. For all the current issues the game has, it does not compare to how broken things were in Beta both meta-wise and from a technical aspect. It was new back then and I did have a blast but I make no illusions that it was objectively a better experience.

When most people talk about the "Golden Age of Beta" we're not even discussing balance. I think everyone will agree Balance is better now than it was then.

No what we're talking about is things like Better Sounds, Better Graphics [paint pealing back to reveal damaged internal structure, instead of simple black charing we have now on damaged areas], Inverse Kinematics, useable jump jets, no consumables, better economy,True dubs, ect.

Edited by Flash Frame, 03 January 2016 - 09:30 PM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Flash Frame, on 03 January 2016 - 09:29 PM, said:

When most people talk about the "Golden Age of Beta" we're not even discussing balance. I think everyone will agree Balance is better now than it was then.

No what we're talking about is things like Better Sounds, Better Graphics [paint pealing back to reveal damaged internal structure, instead of simple black charing we have now on damaged areas], Inverse Kinematics, useable jump jets, no consumables, better economy,True dubs, ect.

Would be cool to have a lot of that stuff back but also keep all the good things that we have now.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Dakota1000, on 03 January 2016 - 09:34 PM, said:

Would be cool to have a lot of that stuff back but also keep all the good things that we have now.

Oh I totally agree, but apparently the internal structure thing was "too much work" even though it looked great. IK caused issues with hit detection. Truedubs lead to the "5 second jenner" and I don't know why we lost the good weapons sounds. I think there were some weird memory leaks with a couple of them for some reason?

[Navid A1]

Slow down for a second.

Past experience shows that PGI is not even aware of a considerable number of issues unless there is a massive uprising here on the forums or other social channels they have. (an example was the issue of the vastly famous 2 year ongoing discussion on poordubs in mechs with sub-250 engines... which russ said he was hearing for the first time... which is ignored to this very moment)

There is absolutely ZERO reliable official channel for conveying feedback. To an extent that the CEO himself is responding in his personal twitter feed (and i'm grateful for that, don't get me wrong)

PGI staff are mostly silent.... I for one like to see paul engage in discussions and give us his opinions on things. I want to hear from HIM regarding machine guns and flamers and LBX cannons.

Edited by Navid A1, 04 January 2016 - 12:47 AM.

[Mycrus]

Player council discussion in 3...2...1
.. oh wait..

[Khobai]

Doesnt MWO have more players now than it ever has? Because of the steam release? And gaining more every day?

Saying MWO has peaked seems kindve premature...

Edited by Khobai, 04 January 2016 - 08:31 AM.

[Pika]

This is not unique to MWO. Go to any game forums and I assure you the majority of posts are not singing that developers praise. Most people are actually in the game playing and having fun, the people on the forum are almost always a very small slither of the playerbase. Might be a slight difference with the ratio in this community due to how hardcore it is, but I'd still argue that the majority of people are in the game playing.

Also endless salt is something the Batteltech community is notorious for. I love Classic BT and have done since I was a kid, but when I go into hobby shops to track down minis\rules\etc you will see other war gamers and staff cringe at the mention of the Battletech community. I'll quote one from my local store. "That community keeps blaming FASA for what happened to BT. In truth FASA just couldn't win. The community hates itself. It's so fast to turn on it's own members if they play Faction X over Faction Y, if they prefer clans, if they prefer the RPG. I saw more arguments and rage running BT tournaments than I ever have 40K." That leaks through here, that shows on these forums and you don't need to get very far at ALL to see "Well in the boardgame XYZ happens so MWO MUST suck because it ain't EXACTLY the same." or "Clan 'Mechs were SUPER POWERFUL in the game so they should be here too!" or other such sillyness.

It also sometimes get's worse: "Oh god Dark Ages was the worst thing to happen to BT." says Person X. Person Y jumps in: "No way man, the Clans is where it all went bad!" and then queue argument for 56 minutes about how much better BT was back in your day while shaking your cane at all the young whippersnappers playing Alpha Strike. The best was when I saw a guy get _mad_ at someone who was playing Alpha Strike because they were enjoying it. "It's not proper Battletech!" I had to ask the guy to leave the store in the end. We're part of a very angry community.

I mean I love the BT community, but sometimes I also really, really hate it.

The Battletech community has been nothing but negative and angry at itself for the last 15 years and they constantly seem to want to see everything BT crash and burn while claiming it's also the best thing ever. I'd be quicker to judge the community before I judged PGI. The game is better than it's ever been and that is objectively true. The community at large is as bitter as ever.

Edited by Pika, 03 January 2016 - 11:06 PM.

[lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol]

That was THE best "become a shill" speech I've ever read. It even played on the heartstrings of "nothing this good will ever happen again for many years" fallacy, that is so long as you forget about Mechwarrior: Living Legends or Battletech.

11/10

Edited by saKhan Ds00 Kerensky, 04 January 2016 - 12:12 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Pika, on 03 January 2016 - 10:47 PM, said:

I'll quote one from my local store. "That community keeps blaming FASA for what happened to BT. In truth FASA just couldn't win. The community hates itself. It's so fast to turn on it's own members if they play Faction X over Faction Y, if they prefer clans, if they prefer the RPG. I saw more arguments and rage running BT tournaments than I ever have 40K."

Can't say I was involved in the TT Battletech scene, but I did spend my fair share of decades playing Games Workshop games. The bolded part above? Them's strong words right there.

[MadcatX]

Wintersdark, on 04 January 2016 - 12:27 AM, said:

Can't say I was involved in the TT Battletech scene, but I did spend my fair share of decades playing Games Workshop games. The bolded part above? Them's strong words right there.

There's truth to them. I've noticed two separate things over the many years that I find play a large part of it, some of it mentioned already:

- Version purists: As far as core tabletop games go, Btech is the only one I've ever encountered that's drastically changed it's ruleset and mechanics over the years. The first iteration was FASA's hex-based terrain and detailed record sheet for each mech you own. When the franchise went to Wizkids, they produced some Classic Battletech material however they really pushed their new btech rulest that used their Clix system and created MW: Dark Age as the lore of their system. Had to look up Alpha Strike since I really didn't know much about it, but apparently the franchise then got in the hands of Catalyst Game Labs and from a gameplay video I just watched, can't say I know the ruleset well other then they rolled a couple dice and used a tape measure very often.

- Tournament games: Now that I think of it, btech is the TT game I've played where I've witnessed the most drama, usually tourny FFA games for quite a few different reasons. I've never played or watched a whole lot of 40K games so I'm not sure how they compare in that regards though.

Heck, even with MW:O you've got a divide on the fanbase between an online-only btech game instead of, well, MechWarrior 5.

[Satan n stuff]

Flash Frame, on 03 January 2016 - 09:29 PM, said:

True dubs, ect.

We never had true dubs.

[El Bandito]

Is it bad if I wish a large bird drops a tortoise on Paul's head?