233 replies to this topic

[NoiseCrypt]

SmoothCriminal, on 17 June 2016 - 08:35 AM, said:

What a waste of money. Why not hire an actual PR person? It's not as if NGNG would walk away - their twitch fan club revolves around MWO. What else would they report on - Candy Crush?

What good will a PR person do when the ones complaining never listen ?

[CK16]

Really, some of you guys have issues with everything Russ does.....is he perfect?.no....but **** try talking to other CEO's of other games....go ahead, go try to communicate with the head of Wargaming, go try it...P.S. hope.you speak Russian! Or God forbid try talking to the CEO of EA....

There is alot of good questions in here,however the *** hats who act like spoiled children who is never happy with anything.....PGI probably ignores threads like this cause of the few annoyingly vocal toxic **** heads who scream and shout "PGI you suck , cause reasons....." PGI ignores threads cause why should they deal with blabbering vile people who mean nothing but to scream and shout at PGI insults....

Edited by CK16, 17 June 2016 - 09:08 AM.

[1453 R]

Rampage, on 17 June 2016 - 08:18 AM, said:

If you want some kind of adversarial investigative reporter questions then you will be sorely disappointed because that is not their function nor is it what they get paid to do. This podcast is simply an opportunity for the community to hear directly from the CEO as to what is being released and what is in the pipeline for the game. It is the information that people were complaining had been cut-off just over a week ago with the Fortress PGI thread and the Where is Russ? thread.

It does not matter what PGI does. To some it will always be wrong or not enough.

What people really want - I mean truly actually want, deep in the bowels of their heart - is to hear Russ explain why he hasn't made the game into the Sims, Civilization, Minecraft, Starcraft, Mass Effect, Halo, and all previous MechWarrior games combined into one titanic supergame that would take Blizzard, Bethesda, Respawn, and Telltale all working together five years to build.

The Four Pillars of the Founder's Initiative means that Russ was supposed to build that game in a year or two, with a second-line company with less than a quarter of the resources of any one of the companies up there. And until people get an answer as to when Russ is going to build that titanic supergame, they're going to be hypertoxic d*cks to no worthwhile effect.

Piranha needs to pick a direction to take MWO and stick with it, yes they do. Tell everyone who doesn't agree with that direction "Sorry, but this is what we've decided to focus our energy and efforts towards. Hopefully we can convince you it's the right way to go." Or, to put it more realistically, "P!ss off. We've done development-by-angry-mob for too long as it is, we're done flopping around bonelessly to the forum's/Reddit's every inflammatory whim." Please - relocate your spines, PGI. I would be delighted if Russ were to lay out a New Manifesto and tell everyone who wanted to violently poopoo it to shove off.

They also need to hire More. Than. One. Community interaction/management person, they need to stipulate that part of being a community management person is being visible to the community,and they need to fish Tina out of whatever closet she's currently hiding in and remind her that people actually liked her when she was doing stuff in the forums and reminding us that Piranha did, in fact, at least pretend to keep tabs on the place.

Neither of those goals, however, is remotely served by being a bunch of howling hooligans who immediately explode into virtual riots every single time anyone at Piranha does anything at all for any reason whatsoever. Pitching the kind of fit people pitch in this pit every single day is supposed to be reserved for real problem issues, where the fit-pitching can sufficiently alarm the developer that they're walking into a minefield. Turns out, however, that if you scream "WOLF!" at the absolutely tippy-toppiest of your lungs into someone's ear twenty-four seven for several years, they're not really primed to pay attention when a large mammalian predator actually turns up.

Anyways. In closing: Grips?

#lockthesafe

[NoiseCrypt]

If only "everyone" could understand that software plans are ..."more like guidelines"...

[Johnny Z]

wanderer, on 16 June 2016 - 02:47 PM, said:

Bit of the ol' conflict of interest there, eh?

Zeus wants his sig back.

[TKSax]

CK16, on 17 June 2016 - 09:07 AM, said:

Really, some of you guys have issues with everything Russ does.....is he perfect?.no....but **** try talking to other CEO's of other games....go ahead, go try to communicate with the head of Wargaming, go try it...P.S. hope.you speak Russian! Or God forbid try talking to the CEO of EA....

PGI is not the anywhere close to size of those companies, but I do exchange quite a few tweets with the Founder of HBS, as well as a lead designers at Yager Development which are companies of similar sizes. You know what I never see form any them? There is a whole lost less Snark that comes out of Russ, sure they get some ridiculous and attacking tweets, they just ignore them an role on as they should. Hard and difficult questions get answered, not ignored. But in reality both them do not answer a whole lot of questions about the games hey are making. they let there Community managers and others do. Russ put himself in that positions, sure I wish people were more civilized, but when Russ responds to questions with Snark and then gets upset when people respond to him in kind I have 0 sympathy for him.

I will continue to (constructively) criticize PGI , I have been doing it for 4 years now, not going to stop. Simply being yes men leads to mediocrity. I do point out things PGI has done well, but I am not going to call out everyone who criticizes PGI like some of you do.

[TKSax]

1453 R, on 17 June 2016 - 09:16 AM, said:

What people really want - I mean truly actually want, deep in the bowels of their heart - is to hear Russ explain why he hasn't made the game into the Sims, Civilization, Minecraft, Starcraft, Mass Effect, Halo, and all previous MechWarrior games combined into one titanic supergame that would take Blizzard, Bethesda, Respawn, and Telltale all working together five years to build.

Nope I think you are wrong there by a mile, not one wants any of that that I know.

1453 R, on 17 June 2016 - 09:16 AM, said:

The Four Pillars of the Founder's Initiative means that Russ was supposed to build that game in a year or two, with a second-line company with less than a quarter of the resources of any one of the companies up there. And until people get an answer as to when Russ is going to build that titanic supergame, they're going to be hypertoxic d*cks to no worthwhile effect.

This is what a lot of people wanted, but PGI form the outset mis-manged expectations, and of course go into this crazy 90 days mantra that was bad back them. No one wants a supergame, just the game PGI said it was going to make, and communicate it effectively.

1453 R, on 17 June 2016 - 09:16 AM, said:

Piranha needs to pick a direction to take MWO and stick with it, yes they do. Tell everyone who doesn't agree with that direction "Sorry, but this is what we've decided to focus our energy and efforts towards. Hopefully we can convince you it's the right way to go." Or, to put it more realistically, "P!ss off. We've done development-by-angry-mob for too long as it is, we're done flopping around bonelessly to the forum's/Reddit's every inflammatory whim." Please - relocate your spines, PGI. I would be delighted if Russ were to lay out a New Manifesto and tell everyone who wanted to violently poopoo it to shove off.

I agree with this, I wish they would pick a direction and stick to it. The problem with that would be, PGI would communicate it so poorly they would end up pissing everyone off even more.

1453 R, on 17 June 2016 - 09:16 AM, said:

They also need to hire More. Than. One. Community interaction/management person, they need to stipulate that part of being a community management person is being visible to the community,and they need to fish Tina out of whatever closet she's currently hiding in and remind her that people actually liked her when she was doing stuff in the forums and reminding us that Piranha did, in fact, at least pretend to keep tabs on the place.

Defiantly Agree here, and they need to get Russ out of using is Personal account for doing PGI business.

1453 R, on 17 June 2016 - 09:16 AM, said:

Neither of those goals, however, is remotely served by being a bunch of howling hooligans who immediately explode into virtual riots every single time anyone at Piranha does anything at all for any reason whatsoever. Pitching the kind of fit people pitch in this pit every single day is supposed to be reserved for real problem issues, where the fit-pitching can sufficiently alarm the developer that they're walking into a minefield. Turns out, however, that if you scream "WOLF!" at the absolutely tippy-toppiest of your lungs into someone's ear twenty-four seven for several years, they're not really primed to pay attention when a large mammalian predator actually turns up.

Anyways. In closing: Grips?

#lockthesafe

Here's the problem, PGI has created this environment on the forums in several ways (non-moderation for so long for example), the most egregious is they only seem to really respond is when the Forums go up in flames. So that is the modus operandi of a the forums at times.

[1453 R]

TKSax, on 17 June 2016 - 09:43 AM, said:

Nope I think you are wrong there by a mile, not one wants any of that that I know.

If you want to let him out of his safe, I'm pretty sure Grips would disagree. But then again nobody should pay any attention to that guy so I suppose.

TKSax, on 17 June 2016 - 09:43 AM, said:

This is what a lot of people wanted, but PGI form the outset mis-manged expectations, and of course go into this crazy 90 days mantra that was bad back them. No one wants a supergame, just the game PGI said it was going to make, and communicate it effectively.

I don't think Piranha is capable of making the game they said they were going to make. I think that's the game they wanted to make, and they game they fully intended to make, before they actually set about making it and discovered what a hefty barrel of bears they'd opened up. They're not going to deliver on the Ultimate MechWarrior 5 Experience everyone keeps kvetching at them for not doing (especially since everyone keeps bellowing "MORE IMMERSIVE FW!", except that when asked what that means they respond with "Uhhhhhhhhhhh........?"). The decision to make, then, is this one: do you accept this as the only MechWarrior game you are ever likely to get and deal with that, toss them the occasional bone, and treat it as one of the many other games in your library, to be played when you're in the mood and set aside when you're not, like a regular person? Do you decide this isn't the game for you and move on, shedding a single manly tear for what might have been in a world where the MechWarrior 5 Piranha wanted to make way back in the day actually found a backer?

Or do you go full hambone and make it your personal mission to make the lives of all your fellow players, everyone at Piranha, and in fact anyone else you happen to randomly encounter on the street as miserable as possible because a manifesto Piranha created several years ago before they knew the real scope of their project turned out to be a bigger bite than they could chew?

here's a hint: pick answer 1 or answer 2. Answer 3 ends with you locked in a safe.

TKSax, on 17 June 2016 - 09:43 AM, said:

I agree with this, I wish they would pick a direction and stick to it. The problem with that would be, PGI would communicate it so poorly they would end up pissing everyone off even more.

They can't really communicate less poorly than they have been. If they picked a direction, there would of course be a giant kerfuffle over it at the start because everybody has their own idea of the proper direction to go, every single one of the is contradictory, and people would spend a few weeks going ballistic over how their personal project/idea has been finally, permanently shelved.

After that? People'd either be on board or be gone, and Piranha could go ahead with developing the game instead of trying to octopus-SlapPatch everything at once to try and please all the blazing idiots in this cesspool.

TKSax, on 17 June 2016 - 09:43 AM, said:

Defiantly Agree here, and they need to get Russ out of using is Personal account for doing PGI business.



Here's the problem, PGI has created this environment on the forums in several ways (non-moderation for so long for example), the most egregious is they only seem to really respond is when the Forums go up in flames. So that is the modus operandi of a the forums at times.

Russ is not a community manager and should stop trying to act like one. For one, he's not very good at it, and for two he's a president, not a CM. He has President things he ought to be working on instead. A monthly podcast with NGNG is cool; that's the sort of thing the head of a company can do for things like announcements, discussions of upcoming design decisions, and possibly some general breeze-shooting just because everybody likes a more casual atmosphere. But responding to concerns the PresCasts (stop calling them Town Halls if nobody from the 'town' gets to say a word, please) brings up? Dealing with forum fallout? Responding to specific whatever-questions on Twitter?

That's not his job. Not really. That's Tina's job, and the job of the two or three other folks Piranha ought to be hiring to help Tina manage all this. She's the filter we're supposed to be going through to bring problems up to Piranha, and the source we're supposed to be tracking for responses on those issues from whoever's desk they end up on.

This company's communications apparatus is awful, and it's shot them in the foot so often I'm surprised they have anything left below the knee. Why Russ is a much more visible and communicative figure than the COMMUNITY FLIPPIN' MANAGER, I will never know. Tina? Srsly. People liked you. Stop hiding, plz.

[CK16]

Tina streams every day almost, seriously if you sit in on the drops and engaged with them, you would be surprised how easy they talk about stuff to you....if it's a question I don't want to call them out in front of everyone I send it in a PM to her. Just don't go in calling her or Paul or PGI names, you would be surprised how much they help! They do listen, they just don't answer alot in the forums cause imo it's easier in person through PM on twitch or on the TS.

I could almost see some of the guys in here going in with a rotten attitude cussing them out in the chat there or some how getting on stream and cuss them out, and possibly ruin dev drops for everyone cause a loose cannon full of hate got in.....and couldn't behave like an adult in a public place. Or maybe some already have and got Banned but say it was PGI's and Tina's fault

Edited by CK16, 17 June 2016 - 10:30 AM.

[cazidin]

1453 R, on 17 June 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

If you want to let him out of his safe, I'm pretty sure Grips would disagree. But then again nobody should pay any attention to that guy so I suppose.




I don't think Piranha is capable of making the game they said they were going to make. I think that's the game they wanted to make, and they game they fully intended to make, before they actually set about making it and discovered what a hefty barrel of bears they'd opened up. They're not going to deliver on the Ultimate MechWarrior 5 Experience everyone keeps kvetching at them for not doing (especially since everyone keeps bellowing "MORE IMMERSIVE FW!", except that when asked what that means they respond with "Uhhhhhhhhhhh........?"). The decision to make, then, is this one: do you accept this as the only MechWarrior game you are ever likely to get and deal with that, toss them the occasional bone, and treat it as one of the many other games in your library, to be played when you're in the mood and set aside when you're not, like a regular person? Do you decide this isn't the game for you and move on, shedding a single manly tear for what might have been in a world where the MechWarrior 5 Piranha wanted to make way back in the day actually found a backer?

Or do you go full hambone and make it your personal mission to make the lives of all your fellow players, everyone at Piranha, and in fact anyone else you happen to randomly encounter on the street as miserable as possible because a manifesto Piranha created several years ago before they knew the real scope of their project turned out to be a bigger bite than they could chew?

here's a hint: pick answer 1 or answer 2. Answer 3 ends with you locked in a safe.




They can't really communicate less poorly than they have been. If they picked a direction, there would of course be a giant kerfuffle over it at the start because everybody has their own idea of the proper direction to go, every single one of the is contradictory, and people would spend a few weeks going ballistic over how their personal project/idea has been finally, permanently shelved.

After that? People'd either be on board or be gone, and Piranha could go ahead with developing the game instead of trying to octopus-SlapPatch everything at once to try and please all the blazing idiots in this cesspool.




Russ is not a community manager and should stop trying to act like one. For one, he's not very good at it, and for two he's a president, not a CM. He has President things he ought to be working on instead. A monthly podcast with NGNG is cool; that's the sort of thing the head of a company can do for things like announcements, discussions of upcoming design decisions, and possibly some general breeze-shooting just because everybody likes a more casual atmosphere. But responding to concerns the PresCasts (stop calling them Town Halls if nobody from the 'town' gets to say a word, please) brings up? Dealing with forum fallout? Responding to specific whatever-questions on Twitter?

That's not his job. Not really. That's Tina's job, and the job of the two or three other folks Piranha ought to be hiring to help Tina manage all this. She's the filter we're supposed to be going through to bring problems up to Piranha, and the source we're supposed to be tracking for responses on those issues from whoever's desk they end up on.

This company's communications apparatus is awful, and it's shot them in the foot so often I'm surprised they have anything left below the knee. Why Russ is a much more visible and communicative figure than the COMMUNITY FLIPPIN' MANAGER, I will never know. Tina? Srsly. People liked you. Stop hiding, plz.

I'll gladly take up the job of Community Manager. I'm not shy.

[Jackal Noble]

Wintersdark, on 16 June 2016 - 07:20 PM, said:

I'm fine with it, really.

Because - and being as neutral and reasonable as possible here - they come to Town Hall's with a list of things they've got to talk about. People's questions tend towards:

1) Obviously leading questions intending to start arguments, not lead anywhere constructive.
2) Stupid questions they've already answered, or that are already public knowledge
3) Interesting questions they can't answer and that there's no point in even asking - for example, "When will we have melee?" Obviously not now, moron. It's a long term plan, but until PGI says something, you can just assume "Not in the immediate future". As will every other "When will..." question.
4) Hugely broad questions they clearly don't have answers to. "How are you going to fix FW?" Why even ask? If they had answers, that would be in the talking points for the Town Hall.
5) Mech announcement questions. "When will I get [the mech I want]". Another dumb question. If it's not the mech being announced, they never give dates specific mechs will arrive.
6) Detailed design questions Russ is often unable to answer, because he's not the game designer.
7) Detailed technical questions Russ is often unable to answer, because he's not a software engineer.

Right there you've basically eliminated 99% of the questions people bring up.

Sure, maybe "town hall" is as a result not a great title, but it's what we've got.


And knowing it is what it is, that makes most questions, even interesting ones, pointless to ask. So, random idiotic questions get through, and it goes nowhere.

Expecting NGNG to "act like a real news agency" (Why do people expect that? They AREN'T a real news agency) is silly. They're a community organisation that works for PGI. That's not a conflict of interest in any way, because they aren't a news agency. They just support the community around MWO, and do so working with PGI.

Sooo what you're saying is, don't ask questions. Never question quality control, never question the questionable future of this game. And never ever ask about pve, melee, hitreg, in game lore, pilot building elements, weapons 2.0, atms, mrms, racs, npcs, elements that would breathe new life into the game.
The emperor is both protected and a captive of his praetors

[Cy Mitchell]

TKSax, on 17 June 2016 - 09:34 AM, said:

I will continue to (constructively) criticize PGI , I have been doing it for 4 years now, not going to stop. Simply being yes men leads to mediocrity. I do point out things PGI has done well, but I am not going to call out everyone who criticizes PGI like some of you do.

Constructive criticism is one thing. Personal attacks and doing everything possible to cast PGI and Mechwarrior Online in a bad light is another. There are 10-15 regular posters on this forum that seem to be on a campaign to destroy PGI and this game. I do not even have to read their post to know what they are going to say because all their post are basically the same. Some of them say they do not even play the game anymore yet they still come here to disparage it.

I find fault with that because I still like the game and want to see development of it continue. Is it all it could be? Heck, no. Have I been disappointed and leveled my own criticism about some decisions? Yes. However, I try to keep my criticism constructive and include possible solutions to things I perceive as a problem. I do not deride the game at every opportunity like the Negative Nancys and Debbie Downers do.

I also do not believe that working to destroy MWOnline and PGI in the hopes that some mystical great gaming company will pick up the IP and make the ultimate MechWarrior game is the best course of action.

If that makes me a "Yes man" or a "White Knight" then so be it. I will willing accept the title as long as the Negative Nancys and Debbie Downers accept their's too.

Edited by Rampage, 17 June 2016 - 10:31 AM.

[TKSax]

1453 R, on 17 June 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

If you want to let him out of his safe, I'm pretty sure Grips would disagree. But then again nobody should pay any attention to that guy so I suppose.

True, there are always super salty people you ignore, but there are pleny of people like me who just want them to do what they said, no more no less.

1453 R, on 17 June 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

I don't think Piranha is capable of making the game they said they were going to make. I think that's the game they wanted to make, and they game they fully intended to make, before they actually set about making it and discovered what a hefty barrel of bears they'd opened up. They're not going to deliver on the Ultimate MechWarrior 5 Experience everyone keeps kvetching at them for not doing (especially since everyone keeps bellowing "MORE IMMERSIVE FW!", except that when asked what that means they respond with "Uhhhhhhhhhhh........?"). The decision to make, then, is this one: do you accept this as the only MechWarrior game you are ever likely to get and deal with that, toss them the occasional bone, and treat it as one of the many other games in your library, to be played when you're in the mood and set aside when you're not, like a regular person? Do you decide this isn't the game for you and move on, shedding a single manly tear for what might have been in a world where the MechWarrior 5 Piranha wanted to make way back in the day actually found a backer?

Or do you go full hambone and make it your personal mission to make the lives of all your fellow players, everyone at Piranha, and in fact anyone else you happen to randomly encounter on the street as miserable as possible because a manifesto Piranha created several years ago before they knew the real scope of their project turned out to be a bigger bite than they could chew?

here's a hint: pick answer 1 or answer 2. Answer 3 ends with you locked in a safe.

Once aging the Pillars were never about mechwarrior 5, they are about MWO/, PGI keeps adding stuff, thats has nothing to do with the original game. I actually do not belive this will be the only mechwarrior game, this game and HBS Battletech, as well as how well Catalyst is doing with the Battletech board game. I think another Developer would make another battletech game soon after PGI if they shut down MWO, but we have had that discussion before.

1453 R, on 17 June 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

They can't really communicate less poorly than they have been. If they picked a direction, there would of course be a giant kerfuffle over it at the start because everybody has their own idea of the proper direction to go, every single one of the is contradictory, and people would spend a few weeks going ballistic over how their personal project/idea has been finally, permanently shelved.

After that? People'd either be on board or be gone, and Piranha could go ahead with developing the game instead of trying to octopus-SlapPatch everything at once to try and please all the blazing idiots in this cesspool.

The black year of 2013, when they missed just about every deadline set, and did not tell anyone they were going to miss until they were months after that deadline. Yes they can be worse.

1453 R, on 17 June 2016 - 10:10 AM, said:

Russ is not a community manager and should stop trying to act like one. For one, he's not very good at it, and for two he's a

Agree with all of this...

[Iron Heel]

A town hall, denotes by its very nature, interaction with the community.

Sans community interactions , a question and answer session with news outlets is a press conference.

A question and answer session with just one outlet is an interview.

An interview with a sycophantic outlet is a PR move/stunt.

/shrug.. Just sayin'

Edited by Iron Heel, 17 June 2016 - 10:31 AM.

[TKSax]

Rampage, on 17 June 2016 - 10:28 AM, said:

Constructive criticism is one thing. Personal attacks and doing everything possible to cast PGI and Mechwarrior Online in a bad light is another. There are 10-15 regular posters on this forum that seem to be on a campaign to destroy PGI and this game. I do not even have to read their post to know what they are going to say because all their post are basically the same. Some of them say they do not even play the game anymore yet they still come here to disparage it.

And that is true for any game on the internet, so just ignore them. I will say that I find people who post nothing but positive defend every desccion that PGI makes just as usless as those who never see anything postitive.

Rampage, on 17 June 2016 - 10:28 AM, said:

I find fault with that because I still like the game and want to see development of it continue. Is it all it could be? Heck, no. Have I been disappointed and leveled my own criticism about some decisions? Yes. However, I try to keep my criticism constructive and include possible solutions to things I perceive as a problem. I do not deride the game at every opportunity like the Negative Nancys and Debbie Downers do.

I also do not believe that working to destroy MWOnline and PGI in the hopes that some mystical great gaming company will pick up the IP and make the ultimate MechWarrior game is the best course of action.

If that makes me a "Yes man" or a "White Knight" then so be it. I will willing accept the title as long as the Negative Nancys and Debbie Downers wear their's proudly too.

I agree to a certain extent, but I think with all the Success battle-tech has been having (MWO, HBS Battletech, Battletech Board game). I think anther Mechwarrior game would be made not to long if PGI stopped making MWO. Which is why I hate when Russ and other use that as an excuse to take MWO as is, it just leads to accepting mediocrity.

[Yellonet]

1453 R, on 17 June 2016 - 09:16 AM, said:

What people really want - I mean truly actually want, deep in the bowels of their heart - is to hear Russ explain why he hasn't made the game into the Sims, Civilization, Minecraft, Starcraft, Mass Effect, Halo, and all previous MechWarrior games combined into one titanic supergame that would take Blizzard, Bethesda, Respawn, and Telltale all working together five years to build.

The Four Pillars of the Founder's Initiative means that Russ was supposed to build that game in a year or two, with a second-line company with less than a quarter of the resources of any one of the companies up there. And until people get an answer as to when Russ is going to build that titanic supergame, they're going to be hypertoxic d*cks to no worthwhile effect.

Piranha needs to pick a direction to take MWO and stick with it, yes they do. Tell everyone who doesn't agree with that direction "Sorry, but this is what we've decided to focus our energy and efforts towards. Hopefully we can convince you it's the right way to go." Or, to put it more realistically, "P!ss off. We've done development-by-angry-mob for too long as it is, we're done flopping around bonelessly to the forum's/Reddit's every inflammatory whim." Please - relocate your spines, PGI. I would be delighted if Russ were to lay out a New Manifesto and tell everyone who wanted to violently poopoo it to shove off.

They also need to hire More. Than. One. Community interaction/management person, they need to stipulate that part of being a community management person is being visible to the community,and they need to fish Tina out of whatever closet she's currently hiding in and remind her that people actually liked her when she was doing stuff in the forums and reminding us that Piranha did, in fact, at least pretend to keep tabs on the place.

Neither of those goals, however, is remotely served by being a bunch of howling hooligans who immediately explode into virtual riots every single time anyone at Piranha does anything at all for any reason whatsoever. Pitching the kind of fit people pitch in this pit every single day is supposed to be reserved for real problem issues, where the fit-pitching can sufficiently alarm the developer that they're walking into a minefield. Turns out, however, that if you scream "WOLF!" at the absolutely tippy-toppiest of your lungs into someone's ear twenty-four seven for several years, they're not really primed to pay attention when a large mammalian predator actually turns up.

Anyways. In closing: Grips?

#lockthesafe

Even if PGI only reads one post per month, I hope this month they pick your post.

[Cy Mitchell]

TKSax, on 17 June 2016 - 10:37 AM, said:

And that is true for any game on the internet, so just ignore them. I will say that I find people who post nothing but positive defend every desccion that PGI makes just as usless as those who never see anything postitive.

100% agree.

TKSax, on 17 June 2016 - 10:37 AM, said:

I agree to a certain extent, but I think with all the Success battle-tech has been having (MWO, HBS Battletech, Battletech Board game). I think anther Mechwarrior game would be made not to long if PGI stopped making MWO. Which is why I hate when Russ and other use that as an excuse to take MWO as is, it just leads to accepting mediocrity.

On this I do not agree. The MechWarrior franchise was ignored for over a decade. The lone exception was MWLL which was a full conversion mod for Crysis. Samurai Studios never acquired the rights to the IP from Microsoft. They were, after all, just a group of modders. No big game developers wanted the IP enough to pay Microsoft for the rights to it.

Smith&Tinker went after the IP because the founders had roots in BT. The present development of BattleTech is probably partly due to the revival of MechWarrior through MWO. But it is still not really a viable product from a money making standpoint for the larger developers.

My major reason for not holding out any hopes for a big developer to take on the IP was that it sat there for a decade. EA, Blizzard, Activision and many smaller publishers and game developers could have snatched it up at any time and no one did: for over ten years. I do not think that PGI has done anything to make them sit up and notice and change there beliefs that the BattleTech/MechWarrior universe and IP is a place where they can potentially make huge sums of money. No huge money to be earned equals no interest in the expense of acquiring the IP and developing a new MechWarrior game.


I would love to be proven wrong about all this but I am confident enough that I am right to want to see MWO continue for a long time.

[1453 R]

JackalBeast, on 17 June 2016 - 10:23 AM, said:

Sooo what you're saying is, don't ask questions. Never question quality control, never question the questionable future of this game. And never ever ask about pve, melee, hitreg, in game lore, pilot building elements, weapons 2.0, atms, mrms, racs, npcs, elements that would breathe new life into the game.
The emperor is both protected and a captive of his praetors

No, what he's saying is stop asking dumb-f*cker questions you KNOW aren't going to get any kind of satisfactory answer.

PvE? You already have your answer - it's a huge undertaking, they're poking along at it as they can, but it's not going to be released anytime in the immediate future. They would like to, they've got folks working on the building-block systems when and as they can, but it's a big ask.

Melee? You already have your answer - the way 'Mechs are currently animated prevents the sort of physical motions you'd need for a melee system. They'd have to rerig every 'Mech in the game for a bare-fisticuffs melee system, something only slightly less burdensome on development resources then an engine switch or parting the Red Sea. If melee is ever implemented, it will likely be in a limited manner, with only those 'Mechs specifically designed and armed for melee (like Dawnstealer's Hatchetman) able to engage in melee combat.

Hitreg? An ongoing battle they address whenever they have anything new to address.

In-game lore? Possibly the only relevant question in your list. It'd be nice to get an ISS news feed back, and possibly something they could tap NGNG to do. That would be a worthwhile question to bring up - so long as it's "we'd really like to get some of these immersive feeds back - is there any way we can do that? Here's some ideas we have - are any of these viable?" Instead of "WHY THE F*** HAVEN'T YOU DONE MORE LORE?!"

Pilot-building elements? What does that even mean? Pilot skilltrees? if so, they've answered that - it's something they're working on and a high priority to fix behind all the blazing-on-fire priority fixes they've got. Things like picking pilot suits, pilot deckles, gender selection? Again, answered - would be nice, would like to do it sometime in the future, not a high priority.

Weapons 2.0? Again, what does that even mean?

MRMs? Rotaries? ATMs? Those are all the same question - "when are we getting FutureTech?" Again, it has been answered: Russ and co. want to hit as many points of the current timeline as they can, give all the rusty oldies they can manage their turn in the sun, before they set about time-skipping. Thet lets them give more people their Favorites, and also gives them more time to work on balancing ideas for problematic FutureTech like heavy lasers.

NPCs? NPCs that would do what, exactly? Stand at the bottom of your 'Mech's foot in the hangar and snark off? 'Elements that breathe new life into the game'? Again - what does that mean? What do you want?

Simply because you don't like the answers you have the the vast majority of your questions doesn't mean those answers aren't out there. Asking them over and over and over again, in as many nasty and spiteful ways as you can, doesn't mean the answers change. Piranha ignores most player questions because they're all the same questions Piranha has answered half a dozen times already. Pay attention, and you get your information.

[Alistair Winter]

Just a friendly request: Please don't get my thread moved to K-town on account of heated or off-topic discussions.

[Wintersdark]

JackalBeast, on 17 June 2016 - 10:23 AM, said:

Sooo what you're saying is, don't ask questions. Never question quality control, never question the questionable future of this game. And never ever ask about pve, melee, hitreg, in game lore, pilot building elements, weapons 2.0, atms, mrms, racs, npcs, elements that would breathe new life into the game.
The emperor is both protected and a captive of his praetors

Err, no, that's not what I said at all. I was just saying there's no point in asking questions you know aren't going to get answered. 1453R covers it much better than I could above.

People want to think that asking those "hard questions" will make some kind of point, but it won't. It just irritates Russ, which leads directly to them sharing less, not more.

Look, I'd love a chance to actually get answers to a lot of questions, but that won't happen at the Town Hall, for a variety of reasons.

My post above is simply saying "This is what we have, make the best of it". This isn't a grand "Question authority!" situation, just one where we can get either a bunch of informationabout what's coming - basically, where Russ is going to share everything he can about what's in the foreseeable future, or we can poison this well as we did so many others and get nothing.

All in pursuit of "proving some point" about evil PGI or some crap like that.

Russ has already said what he can about longer term concepts (Solaris, PvE, melee, etc) and will say more when he can, but what he won't do is talk more about features still in the "design phase" or that haven't even made it there yet. He won't, because that leads directly to "But you promised these things!" Forum explosions later because implemented features are never the same as initial designs or feature wish lists.