52 replies to this topic

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

It goes to show that you don't need to be run into the ground by a greedy publisher to get funding if your game is unique and players actually want to see it come to light. They raised their money on their own and don't have a PoS company like EA trying to rush it out the door for a quick buck. I hope they keep the game off limits until it is as good as they can make it. Impatient publishers rushing for deadlines or looking to make games as cheaply as possible are the # 1 problem killing our video games now. I'm tired of games being rushed out the door half finished to meet a deadline or cut corners every way they could on development costs. I'd rather wait a year and have a GOOD game than get it sooner and it be crappy. Why am I in the minority? If EA or Blizzard had their hands on this and was selling the Founders I wouldn't have paid a dime on it. No greedy selfish publisher was one of the selling points for me. When this game hits the market it'll be about making a decent MechWarrior comeback, not just cashing in on its name such as titles like Diablo 3 did.(For that matter forget D3 and pre-order Torchlight 2.)

Arena Net(GW2) is another company that is looking promising. They kept GW2 off the market for years until they thought it was good enough for modern expectations. They funded it themselves with their previous game and with pre-orders; no PoS publisher loansharking them money in exchange for a rushed release date or ton of features gutted out of the game.

Edited by Bluten, 13 July 2012 - 04:55 PM.

[TheOneGunslinger]

Soulvoid, on 13 July 2012 - 03:41 PM, said:

From Bryan Ekman 4Jul2012

For one, standard retail ALPHA/BETA definitions do not apply to online F2P games. The game will always be in development, which means, new features and content will roll out frequently. We have not announced hard dates for Open Beta or Release. Our goal has always been to hit Open Beta before the end of summer.


Founder's:

• On August 7th, Founder's early access will begin and still considered part of the Closed Beta period.
  
• Player's will have access to all of their Founder's perks and rewards.
  
• -->These rewards will be reset from time-to-time during until Open Beta. (new)<--
  
• When MWO goes Open Beta, all Founder's perks and rewards will be reset to 100% for the final time.
  
• Once in Open Beta, your premium account bonuses will begin, and any MC used will be permanently spent.

So no open beta 7AUG2012.

Also since the production equipment is still not fully online, the timetable has slipped at least a bit. From everything posted, early access to closed beta for founders is still (currently) 7Aug2012.

can some one link to that post can find it (the post by Bryan Ekman)

Edited by TheOneGunslinger, 13 July 2012 - 04:58 PM.

[Skadi]

Adm Awesome, on 13 July 2012 - 03:46 PM, said:

I just can't wait till 2 or 3 years later when many founders kinda trickle away and/or the game is just over populated by people without founder programs that we are like MWO icons xD

Kinda like people who still have the Stallion epic mount in wow

(was taken out of the game only a few months after initial launch)

the green kodo was soooooooooooooo cooler.

[Oengus Braonain]

Chip Geek, on 13 July 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:

I may be wrong, but I thought the August 7 beta was still CLOSED beta - but it just lets all of the founders in at that time. I do not think a date for OPEN beta has been announced yet. Just a vague "summer" date for the open beta (which could be anytime up to September 21 - the first day of fall).

First day of fall is October 22

Well, Im sure we have all been waiting for the next MechWarrior game ever since MW4: Mercenaries...and since MechAssault was atrocious and a disgrace to the game... Whats waiting a few more weeks, or even a month or two. The game is gonna be epic, regardless.

[Lee Von]

+1 Very well said.

[BlackAbbot]

In MWO you gotta get the Founders Pack first. Then when you get the Founders Pack, then you get the Closed Beta Invite. Then when you get the Closed Beta Invite, then you get the women.

[SGT_Stubby]

Here comes the kicker though. With all of these founder's account's being paid already, there really IS something of a time limit. Do you want your game to come out next year or even a few more years down the road? No, you expect your investment to come in a reasonable amount of time. This will vary according to the person. You can say you'll wait until it's ready, but you do have a time limit you'll place on yourself.

Ask yourself "How long can I wait after I've already paid?" Then place yourself in the situation where it's been delayed another 3 months. Then try a year. Then try two years. What is your limit?

Edit: To further this, you may be willing to stay until it's ready no matter what I ask. Will everyone else? Will your $120 ever see fruition or will everyone who paid ask for a refund? What would happen if that came true?

Edited by Aldrai Sedai, 13 July 2012 - 05:20 PM.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Aldrai Sedai, on 13 July 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

Here comes the kicker though. With all of these founder's account's being paid already, there really IS something of a time limit. Do you want your game to come out next year or even a few more years down the road? No, you expect your investment to come in a reasonable amount of time. This will vary according to the person. You can say you'll wait until it's ready, but you do have a time limit you'll place on yourself.

Ask yourself "How long can I wait after I've already paid?" Then place yourself in the situation where it's been delayed another 3 months. Then try a year. Then try two years. What is your limit?

Time spent waiting is time I'd simply spend on Guild Wars 2. Unless you're dying soon, time spent waiting won't matter once it is released. I'd rather the game be as good as it can.

[Sola Fide]

+1 Better to wait and have a great game.

Edited by Sola Fide, 13 July 2012 - 05:41 PM.

[BlackAbbot]

Aldrai Sedai, on 13 July 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

Here comes the kicker though. With all of these founder's account's being paid already, there really IS something of a time limit. Do you want your game to come out next year or even a few more years down the road? No, you expect your investment to come in a reasonable amount of time. This will vary according to the person. You can say you'll wait until it's ready, but you do have a time limit you'll place on yourself.

Ask yourself "How long can I wait after I've already paid?" Then place yourself in the situation where it's been delayed another 3 months. Then try a year. Then try two years. What is your limit?

Edit: To further this, you may be willing to stay until it's ready no matter what I ask. Will everyone else? Will your $120 ever see fruition or will everyone who paid ask for a refund? What would happen if that came true?

This question really boils down to what you consider 'waiting'. Do you still consider it waiting once you're in the closed beta and playing a game through the development stages. The footage we've seen so far shows a game that shows considerable polish and has us all gagging to play, although one has to assume that we've largely been shown cherry picked bits. Now come August 7th all Founders will gain Closed Beta access and based on current forum statistics that will mean a beta population of between around 17,500 and 20,000 players. While this is hardly what you would call a 'massive' population in terms of an online game it is certainly enough to ensure reasonable online populations at any time, particularly when that group is made up entirely of hardcore enthusiasts, as this one is.

From that point on it is a question of Founders being involved in a process of assisting the Devs in refining the game through the beta, not simply passively waiting for it to be dropped in their lap, so that if it does take a longer period of time before it ultimately goes to an open beta and/or full release status it is simply a reflection of it being that much better a product.

[Bearcut]

BlackAbbot, on 13 July 2012 - 05:10 PM, said:

In MWO you gotta get the Founders Pack first. Then when you get the Founders Pack, then you get the Closed Beta Invite. Then when you get the Closed Beta Invite, then you get the women.

First we get the khakis. Then we get the chicks.

[Belorion]

Oengus Braonain, on 13 July 2012 - 05:05 PM, said:

First day of fall is October 22

Well, Im sure we have all been waiting for the next MechWarrior game ever since MW4: Mercenaries...and since MechAssault was atrocious and a disgrace to the game... Whats waiting a few more weeks, or even a month or two. The game is gonna be epic, regardless.

First day of Fall, 2012 is...

September 22.

First day of winter 2012 is...

December 21

First day of spring 2013 is...

March 20

First day of Summer 2013 is...

June 21


Each season is three months.

[Squiggy McPew]

Seeing as pgi has almost all the time consuming stuff done like the copious artwork, mech modeling and all the sound work which is the meat of any game development anyways the next phases of beta will rapidly change the way the game plays until its right for release.

Pretty much all that is left now is to tweak the balance of the game and hunt for bugs to squash along with making sure things like the matchmaker work correctly as that type of tweaking can only be done with large numbers in the battle queue.

Having taken part in many many beta programs and seen how long it takes after open beta starts I'd speculate this game going live sometime around christmas.

Would be a nice present for sure.

[xRaeder]

Chip Geek, on 13 July 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:

I may be wrong, but I thought the August 7 beta was still CLOSED beta - but it just lets all of the founders in at that time. I do not think a date for OPEN beta has been announced yet. Just a vague "summer" date for the open beta (which could be anytime up to September 21 - the first day of fall).

*Nevermind*

Edited by xRaeder, 14 July 2012 - 05:12 PM.

[Grey Rabbit]

As far as the "It'll be ready when it's ready", I think that this type of game has a distinct advantage of other online games. The gameplay itself is based off of the numbers and stats on our mounted equipment. All medium lasers are born equal. Once the first gametypes and mounted equipment are in place and they all work, it's a matter of adding content, such as mechs and maps. It seems like one of those projects where the last 10% of the work is the longest part(in this case, almost eternal).

Them having more founders money pays for the server set up and sets up a nest egg to use to add more content. The content will make us feel happy while they make more of the difficult stuff, like gameplay types(which still has the same core game numbers anyways, just new ways to use it). Other games have more variables to add in and more balance issues when they add more classes and effects and such.

The unfortunate side effect, I would imagine, is that their first 3 month's revenue numbers will be skewed because most of us paid for those numbers up front and, for the most part, we won't be needing to pay them for anything until we've burned through our in-game cash and X number of months of member status. It'll be the best worst first three starting months they could ever hope for. I suspect it won't be until early next year before they truely know what they have to work with as far as steady monthly income.

That's just my guess, anyways.

-Rabbit

[Khan Jal]

Can't wait for MWO. It's been a long time coming.

[Lysandus]

Khan Jal, on 14 July 2012 - 06:58 PM, said:

Can't wait for MWO. It's been a long time coming.

Me too!

[Black Snowman]

I dropped my hard earned cash to see the rebirth of the franchise. Even if MWO isn't what I want, I want it to be successful so they get the backing to make more games in the franchise that I might like better. If MWO is all I hope it will be, then more games are just cake. To summarize: even if I don't play more than an hour of MWO after beta, I'll still consider my $120 money well spent.

[Dredhawk]

Well if the game turn out to suck they will probably have a lot of angry founders LOL

[Doctor Strangelove]

Belorion, on 13 July 2012 - 06:44 PM, said:

First day of Fall, 2012 is...

September 22.

First day of winter 2012 is...

December 21

First day of spring 2013 is...

March 20

First day of Summer 2013 is...

June 21


Each season is three months.

Actually if you live in the southern hemisphere then what you just said is incorrect.