503 replies to this topic

[Insufficient Skill]

1453 R, on 06 June 2016 - 10:02 AM, said:

Whether or not Piranha's Fortress Devpublic act of late is The Forum's Fault...well, honestly I can almost guarantee it is. This place is a horrible snake pit, with far too many players who would honestly be doing everyone involved, including themselves, a big favor by just leaving altogether spewing irrational, unfounded hatred and bile towards Piranha in every single post they make (GRIPS). The fact that there are people who honestly believe that Piranha intentionally releases 'Mechs in an overpowered state on pack release, only to deliberately nerf them down on C-bill release to perpetuate the cycle, really kinda says it all.

Would you talk to these pus-spewing ar.se-sores, if you had any choice in the matter? Half of the folks in this cesspool deserve a sound thrashing more than they deserve their 'questions' answered.

Unfortunately...Piranha, as a company, doesn't really have a choice. We're their customer base, and the most vocal and ardent part of it to boot. They can't pull Fortress Devpublic without devolving all the way back to 2013, and as Bishop said, there's no IGP to throw under the bus this time.

What needs to happen is that Piranha needs to develop a proper community interaction system, post-haste. Russ should not be talking to the forums, outside of high-level overview stuff like the roadmaps or possibly stopping by on Town Halls. That's not his job. He's the president, not the CM. I don't know where the hell Tina went after her strong start, but they need to dig her out of whatever closet she's got herself locked in and get her involved again, and they need to hire another couple-three guys to help. Those guys need to be exceptionally thick-skinned, and furthermore they need to be granted the power to actually slap down people who continue to perpetuate blatantly false, demonizing toxic bile like the Cash Grab Cycle, or people who never manage to say anything more than "F*** Piranha Forever".

The actual game devs, whose jobs are hard enough as it is, do deserve some insulation from the ******* who don't have anything better to do than armchair-dev and vomit hatred day and night. Piranha as a whole, the company itself, needs to start dealing with this stuff, though. It's already feeling more like the Dark Ages of 2013 around here than the Glorious Renaissance of immediately post-IGP. However Piranha needs to fix that, they'd better step on it before they lose any more ground.

Wanna buy a 'mech pack?

[Wan Chu Minge]

Thorn Hallis, on 07 June 2016 - 02:56 AM, said:

According to EA they never reached an agreement in regards to the Wing Commander licence, even though PGI stated otherwise.

Fair enough, I still don't see how this game is viable long term, and user numbers are continuing to drop as far as the Steam figures show.

Think back to the last couple of times there was PGI Radio silence. (And I'm going from memory, so please community correct me if I'm wrong)

The first was when PGI was in negotiations with Microsoft to renew the license (2013?) Russ pretty much said that whilst the negations were ongoing, development slowed to almost a halt as they were unsure if they would even have a game if agreement wasn't reached.

The second time was when the IGP/PGI thing was kicking off. Russ later came out and said that there was an enforced gag order whilst things were being worked out legally and financially.

Also, remember this from September 2014!!? Ladies and Gents, I present Mr Russ Bullock..

https://clyp.it/guysghyw

and this

https://clyp.it/4xjtdmge

And things are now worse, I think its totally 'Maintenance Mode' time.

Edited by Wan Chu Minge, 07 June 2016 - 04:02 AM.

[slide]

For those chucking numbers around

I vaguely remember Russ throwing these around over the years (he doesn't let much slip).

Operating costs month $500k
Average loggins month 100k (note loggins not individual players ie could be 10k players if every one logs in 10 times)
Maps cost around $250k to produce (wages testing etc)
Mechs cost around $50k

Stand alone loggins approx. equal to steam loggins.

To fund this game alone on mechpacks at say an average of $50/pack. $550k/$50=11k That is a lot of mechpaks being sold every month. Perhaps explains why we don't see many new maps.

Edited by slide, 07 June 2016 - 04:11 AM.

[invernomuto]

So, trying to be constructive, what we as a community should do? Right now there are no alternatives: similar titles are far worse than MWO. If MWO is losing players, according to steamcharts, Hawken is already doomed.
I think it's quite pointless discussion about "business sustainability" for PGI without knowing a single figure (operating costs, income, etc).
I hope they will continue to add new contents trying to capture new players. I think that some aspect of the game could improve a lot with some fine tuning and some small additions.
Again, there are no alternatives to MWO, you can go back playing MW4 or hope that a big studio will buy PGI, but honestly I think that this is and will remain a niche game, with a small playerbase. You can't compare it to DOTA2 or other "mainstream" games...

My 0.02$.

[Wan Chu Minge]

invernomuto, on 07 June 2016 - 04:17 AM, said:

So, trying to be constructive, what we as a community should do? Right now there are no alternatives: similar titles are far worse than MWO. If MWO is losing players, according to steamcharts, Hawken is already doomed.
I think it's quite pointless discussion about "business sustainability" for PGI without knowing a single figure (operating costs, income, etc).
I hope they will continue to add new contents trying to capture new players. I think that some aspect of the game could improve a lot with some fine tuning and some small additions.
Again, there are no alternatives to MWO, you can go back playing MW4 or hope that a big studio will buy PGI, but honestly I think that this is and will remain a niche game, with a small playerbase. You can't compare it to DOTA2 or other "mainstream" games...

My 0.02$.

Ok, remove the business sustainability argument.



If Steam user Logins = Non Steam user Logins, then by following the trend shown in the line graph above; we will only have a handful of players by Christmas.

I want to point out that I DO NOT want this game to fail. I use an alt account to keep me flame proof, but I have been playing since closed Beta and I have willingly plowed thousands of dollars into this game. I play almost daily.

I do want people to have their eyes opened to what can only be viewed as perilous times for this title and the paranoia generated by PGI's continued silence is only making things worse.

If you are going to continue to advance purchase Mech's do so with half an eye on the state of the community and the game in general.

I have nothing to gain, and much to lose if PGI fails. As do many of us.

[dervishx5]

What should the community do? It can't do much. PGI just wants the community's money, not its input.

Lots of the community is leaving. I don't see too many new faces replacing them.

Edited by dervishx5, 07 June 2016 - 04:29 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Well in the German Community there was a boost of new players caused by Steam, for each Forum user there must be at least 4 players that doesn't bother with the forums.

About Steam, I think the number of nonsteam users is bigger than those that still use steam. I admit the only advantage steam can offer is auto patching - but i worked without auto patching for years.
And even without playing active MWO I still keep my client updated.

[Wan Chu Minge]

dervishx5, on 07 June 2016 - 04:28 AM, said:

What should the community do? It can't do much. PGI just wants the community's money, not its input. Lots of the community is leaving. I don't see too many new faces replacing them.

I don't think there is anything the community can do. I personally feel its too late for PGI. We all had hope for Phase 3, and held out on the promise, but think about how long it took them to apply a bit of polish to Beta 2 and add what essentially is a reduced 4v4 mode that is just a variant of the quick play game.

Faction Play is not even in BETA anymore, although it left that phase with a whimper rather than a roar. Didn't Russ say a lengthy Phase 3 promotional video would be imminent at the last Town Hall? I missed it.

Unless someone can show me a Product Road-map that shows the huge improvements being planned that will bring the users back, I think we have 6 months if we are lucky. There wont be anything though, there is nothing to say..



I'll still be playing though. Perhaps I'll read some books whilst waiting in the queues.

Edited by Wan Chu Minge, 07 June 2016 - 05:06 AM.

[AnTi90d]

slide, on 07 June 2016 - 04:08 AM, said:

Maps cost around $250k to produce (wages testing etc)

If they'd just release a god damned map editor, we, the players, would gladly make maps for zero dollars per map. We'd test them and refine them, just like we did for Mechwarrior 4 maps.

Investing resources into a mapmaker and then running monthly mapmaking contests would work miracles for this game.

[Insufficient Skill]

Random Carnage, on 06 June 2016 - 07:16 PM, said:

The current toxic attitude on these forums is all that happens to be left after continuous mismanagement drove off all the rest of the community. The toxic attitude, are the genre die-hards that really wanted this game to succeed when all other fair weather warriors got smart and left for better games.

THIS.

People are still here, because they care about the game and the franchise (not so much about Piranha Games, there will always be someone to fill that gap). People who don't care have already left long ago.

[Alistair Winter]

For what it's worth, I think Russ is burned out. He's so used to being on top of things, he doesn't want to transfer responsibility to anyone else, but at the same time the intense pressure over years and years has zapped him of energy. So PGI is in a bad spot, because the management is in a funk, just trying to keep the wheels turning until the next game.

I've said it before. The first Town Halls actually inspired sympathy in a lot of players after the IGP tragedy. Myself included. However, the last Town Halls have actually inspired antipathy, because Russ was so audibly fed up and uninterested. In retrospect, I wonder if the drunken Town Hall was an attempt to get through a Town Hall without showing just how tired he was of interacting with the community.

For those of you following MMA, it's easy to see parallells with the UFC, right now. Dana White being the president of the UFC, used to interact with the media a lot. Years and years of pressure, got increasingly agitated. Stopped having regular talks with the media. This weekend, he banned the most highly profiled journalist in MMA from UFC due to his "negativity", throwing him out in the middle of a fight event. I don't want to draw the parallells too closely because PGI isn't in the same league, but my point is that it's really hard to be the president and the face of the company and the mouthpiece at the same time. Instead of people attacking the company, they attack you as a person. But for some leaders, it's hard to let go of this role. So instead of letting other people take over, they just become increasingly withdrawn and agitated.

I've said this countless times: My problem with PGI isn't that Russ Bullock isn't doing enough. I don't begrudge the fact that he probably doesn't know very much about game balance or the meta or how to fix the Summoner. His real error is that he's so used to being on top of everything that he's not getting his employees to take care of business. From what I can tell, he's doing the classic mistake of the "good" leader. Taking too much responsibility upon himself, not delegating it to others.

Where is the community manager? Why is Russ Bullock doing every Town Hall, instead of letting other PGI employees answer questions about game balance, faction play, future mech packs, etc? What is Tina's actual job? Is she supposed to run the world championship and answer PMs and emails from the players and be responsible for Instagram and other social media and interact with the players on the forum and take care of gaming events and competition and be responsible for Vlogs, in addition to other things? Why has MWO had something like 4 community managers by now, and yet they were all practically invisible most of the time? Did they even have full time jobs at the company?

At the end of the day, I think the breakdown in communication comes down to mismanagement of resources. Russ Bullock is the president, he needs to be involved in human resources, economy, logistics and a bunch of stuff going on behind the scenes. He's making big calls about long term goals and strategies. I don't need him to answer me about Trebuchet quirks on Twitter, I need him to make sure someone else is interacting with the players on Twitter.

[Wan Chu Minge]

Good post, and I think your a 100% right about Russ. Last few town-halls have been very negative. I stay up until one in the morning to listen to them and those guys droning on for a couple of hours and come away wondering what I learned from it.

Tina is nice and all, but she doesn't seem to know anything let alone do anything much, the last few videos she did many many months ago interviewing the Devs were so breathtakingly awful, I had to watch them with my eyes closed whilst hiding behind the sofa.

On a separate note, can I just say that I have enjoyed your forum posts over the years Alistair, thanks for taking the time with them.

Edited by Wan Chu Minge, 07 June 2016 - 05:58 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

nitra, on 06 June 2016 - 11:23 PM, said:

This Forum is no where near the levels of hate acidity and saltyness that people describe it as .

when i read these forums, i dont see hate . i see love letters written to a estranged lover who rarely answers back and when they do its usually spiteful and abusive.

If those are love letters, you must have quite the history of restraining orders, and might want counseling for stalking.

Defending toxic bilge because it's "not as toxic as some other forums" is a really sad commentary on the mindset of gamers and the state of arrested emotional development endemic to gaming as a whole.

It's great to know MWO isn't the Chernobyl of gaming communities. You'll excuse me if I don't find it only being the Fukashima Daiichi of communities faint praise, and a pretty limp defense of the toxic gamer mentality.

*SMH*

[Bud Crue]

Bishop Steiner, on 07 June 2016 - 06:02 AM, said:

If those are love letters, you must have quite the history of restraining orders, and might want counseling for stalking.

Defending toxic bilge because it's "not as toxic as some other forums" is a really sad commentary on the mindset of gamers and the state of arrested emotional development endemic to gaming as a whole.

It's great to know MWO isn't the Chernobyl of gaming communities. You'll excuse me if I don't find it only being the Fukashima Daiichi of communities faint praise, and a pretty limp defense of the toxic gamer mentality.

*SMH*

I think what nitra is getting at is that while there are exceptions, much of the bile that the forum warriors exhibit in their posts is not put out there as some perverse desire to express "toxic bilge", but rather to express frustration and a sense of impotent longing for what they feel the game should be and isn't. Often that comes out as "acidity and saltyness" but what it really is: is hope. Hope for change. Hope for the game that they feel they were promised or paid for. Hope for MW5. Hope that someone at PGI would just try to engage with them a bit. Desperate but futile hope.

[Thorn Hallis]

Wan Chu Minge, on 07 June 2016 - 04:00 AM, said:

Fair enough, I still don't see how this game is viable long term, and user numbers are continuing to drop as far as the Steam figures show.

The steamcharts show nothing new here. The game has won and lost players constantly since the beginning, the official stance of PGI was that they are satisfied with the player numbers. After removing the player counter from the client (which sparked the first "The sky is fallin" threads) we as players would never again know how many peeps were online at any given time. Still, the game went on.
While I do agree that the heightend frequency of 'Mechpack releases could be a sign that PGI is in a financially dire situation, I see no reason to believe that today is any different than the months or years before.

Edited by Thorn Hallis, 07 June 2016 - 06:13 AM.

[invernomuto]

Wan Chu Minge, on 07 June 2016 - 04:26 AM, said:

If Steam user Logins = Non Steam user Logins, then by following the trend shown in the line graph above; we will only have a handful of players by Christmas.

I want to point out that I DO NOT want this game to fail. I use an alt account to keep me flame proof, but I have been playing since closed Beta and I have willingly plowed thousands of dollars into this game. I play almost daily.

I do want people to have their eyes opened to what can only be viewed as perilous times for this title and the paranoia generated by PGI's continued silence is only making things worse.

If you are going to continue to advance purchase Mech's do so with half an eye on the state of the community and the game in general.

I have nothing to gain, and much to lose if PGI fails. As do many of us.

What were the active players numbers two years ago?
There was a Steam launch on december, people tried a F2P game and played with it some months, then unistalled it or stopped playing. It's how it works with F2P games. I've tried World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, Heroes and Generals, and so on. They never grabbed me, I unistalled them after a few months. I usually try new F2P games on Steam, when they're advertised on the client or I notice something interesting searching in the store. Why things should be different for MWO? There are lots of people that do not know BT and are not interested in it, they simply want to try something different, an FPS with robots.
Thinking that if you gain 5000 players throught a steam launch they will become 5.000 permanent (paying) players is a wishful thinking but it's not going to happen in real world.
But that's not the point. Again, what are the solutions? I do not think that bashing the game in public saying that it's doomed or, in general, contributing to the forum toxicity it's a very smart move for the future of the Mechwarrior franchise, but maybe it's just me, I am a relatively new (steam) player.
There are people that are deliberating boycotting PGI "so that a big game developer could step in"... Keep dreaming.
To me this is a suicide move, but ehi, it's a free world!
Again, I do not see many big game studios eager to take the Mechwarrior franchise. Microsoft sold BT license to PGI/IGP, not to Blizzard or Ubisoft. If BT is such a golden goose, why Microsoft did not publish a game similar to MWO directly?
While from 1995 to 2002 there were lots of *very good* AAA mechwarrior games for PC, from 2002 to 2012 there were none.
MWO is from 2012 and it was developed by a ***small studio*** like PGI.
IMVHO the reality is that is BT is 30 years old game and apart from some nostalgic - and older - guys like you and me, most of the younger player it's not interested in BT rules, lore, etc AND in Mechwarrior game in general.
Again, my 0.02$.
Cheers,
D.

PS
Someone has great hopes for the upcoming BT game: https://en.wikipedia...28video_game%29
While I will buy and support this game, comparing it to MWO is like comparing apples to oranges IMVHO: One is a turn based strategy game and the other is a FPS game. Different genres, different gameplay, different people playing them.

Edited by invernomuto, 07 June 2016 - 07:05 AM.

[Wan Chu Minge]

Thorn Hallis, on 07 June 2016 - 06:12 AM, said:

The steamcharts show nothing new here. The game has won and lost players constantly since the beginning, the official stance of PGI was that they are satisfied with the player numbers. After removing the player counter from the client (which sparked the first "The sky is fallin" threads) we as players would never again know how many peeps were online at any given time. Still, the game went on.
While I do agree that the heightend frequency of 'Mechpack releases could be a sign that PGI is in a financially dire situation, I see no reason to believe that today is any different than the months or years before.

Ok, they show nothing new, but consider the fact that since the beginning of the year PGI had three business strategies for increasing user numbers and revenue and ultimately improving product viability.

• Steam Launch - Big injection of user numbers and base Mech pack purchases. Can this be considered a success six months on? They cant do it again.
  
• Community Warfare Faction Play - Phase 3 - I think we can all see that if anything this has driven user numbers down further.
  
• The MWO World Championships. Now I'm not involved with this in anyway (except I purchased the support pack), but I can already see that this is falling apart from the various posts on this forum and elsewhere.

If you were in the management team at PGI and your were reviewing the last 6 months from a business perspective, looking at the financials and user numbers, could you honestly say that the company should invest further into this product?

I'm not being salty, I'm not trying to get the game shut down. This is a forum for discussion and I just wanted to have one.

[DarthHias]

Steamcharts just show one thing. Initally lots of guys tried MWO, and are now fading, with only those login in via Steam that stay. Normal player base probably stayed.

[CK16]

Wow the amount of salty vile people in this thread is already concerning and understand why PGI won't come in here. Bishop had a great post with concerns and people dove into exactly why PGI maybe went dsrk. They are not perfect yes, but they are far from the worst...

The ****-er's who think that PGI burning down and MWO going with it as a good thing, are ******* morons! Cheering for such a horrible fate and some wanting PGI to lose the license needs to think, if PGI falls hard, there might never be another Mechwarrior game again, Microsoft would just sit on the title and do nothing...or do really really bad by the franchise!.....

PGI is continually adding, even if slowly they are moving forward.....and who knows maybe the silence right now is maybe they got a big announcement soon that will be good news for once......Also the tournament for some there running it is very time consuming....

Edited by CK16, 07 June 2016 - 07:29 AM.

[Wan Chu Minge]

invernomuto, on 07 June 2016 - 06:21 AM, said:

What were the active players numbers two years ago?
.

I don't know, but I'm reasonably confident that they were higher than they are now.

invernomuto, on 07 June 2016 - 06:21 AM, said:

But that's not the point. Again, what are the solutions? I do not think that bashing the game in public saying that it's doomed or, in general, contributing to the forum toxicity it's a very smart move for the future of the Mechwarrior franchise, but maybe it's just me, I am a relatively new (steam) player.

One of the solutions could be for PGI to actively engage the user community as mentioned in this thread by others. Map generation for example, a framework for modding? (I don't know, my programming skills died with Clipper and Cobol in the eighties!!)

Again, I'm not bashing the game, but I do think that the continuous Mech releases are rather disingenuous of PGI and people need to recognize that at least from what we know today, the game is pretty much at the end of the development road map.