233 replies to this topic

[Zordicron]

Alistair Winter, on 16 June 2016 - 09:33 AM, said:

http://mwomercs.com/...e-17th-6-pm-pdt

Topics include the Summer updates! Command Wheel,

BattleMech Rescale, changes to the Assault game mode,

the new Heat System, and much more!

Unfortunately, they forgot to mention how we're supposed to contribute with questions for Russ. Easy mistake to make.

EDIT: I will post cliff-notes in this thread, so... bookmark it, share it on facebook and add me on instagram.

Given Tina actually responded in the fairly big TH feedback thread after all the rage from the last one, it is possible they have actually structured up an outline of what they are going to cover. The list of topics is a big plus IMO, and shows that at least they know what they want to talk about this time around.

If they follow most of the feedback I and others gave them last time, they will:

-Give themselves a certain amount of time to talk about each item
-Save questions until the end, so they don;t end up getting hung up on one thing for 2 hours
-Only answer questions they actually have answers to, and make note of the ones they don;t to get actual answers for them the next TH. As in, none of these rambling non-answers that Russ has to keep repeating as people keep rewording the same question over and over. THAT is what ruins the TH.
-Recap, and include a list of questions in said recap that Russ will look into for us for the next TH, so we know he both listened, and will actually dig up a real answer.
-during the next town hall, begin the Q and A with answers from this town hall's "research" questions. (the ones he didn;t have an answer for us this time around)

If they can sort of mostly follow a structure like that, the TH will both be very infomative and manage to stay on pace and avoid the rambling boredom of previous TH's.

I am hoping I can tune in. I am REALLY hoping Tina and Russ sat down and hashed out some type of structure for these going forward so we can have a thrill a minute and not listen to Russ try to calm the rage of a few question spammers on one single topic for 45 minutes while he repeats himself over and over to no avail before finally getting that exasperated sound to his voice and forcing the topic closed.

[cazidin]

So. PGI HAS forgotten about the Command Console then? I don't care about the rescale, decals, or the Phoenix Hawk. I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE COMMAND CONSOLE!!!

Also, Zordicon, you assume that Tina has that much influence.

Edited by cazidin, 16 June 2016 - 04:08 PM.

[Mcgral18]

1453 R, on 16 June 2016 - 02:05 PM, said:

*Buzzes through thread for real this time*

You know, guys not named Wintersdark or Alistair or Quicksilver and stuff...maybe Piranha would be more inclined to answer your questions if all your questions weren't "When are you going to stop f*cking up and do all this sh!t I've written down in my sig-linked forum post that is literally the only way to save MWO?"

Yeah, Piranha's communication recently has been bad. They need a community management team that actually, y'know, manages the community, and they need to pick a direction to start taking MWO and stick to it. But no, I don't actually expect them to answer the biased, nakedly hostile stuff you guys keep throwing at them, and in fact don't even want them to.

Maybe act like reasonable human beings instead of diarrhea-flinging rabid monkeys and you might get further. Reasonable human beings can make points and express their dissatisfaction in ways that don't involve fiery butt emissions, you know.

That's been attempted
Didn't work, arguably even less effective than pitchforks

[Deathlike]

Mcgral18, on 16 June 2016 - 04:27 PM, said:

That's been attempted
Didn't work, arguably even less effective than pitchforks

You know, the thing is... even every black knight to this game was actually nice once upon a time. Multiple years of indifference by PGI to address things correctly through action/inaction only reaffirms the truth.

It doesn't matter either way... because... buy a mechpack?

[1453 R]

Mcgral18, on 16 June 2016 - 04:27 PM, said:

That's been attempted
Didn't work, arguably even less effective than pitchforks

Continue attempting. Pitchforks make us all into bad people. If you must be aggressive, go with "Your communications in recent months have been...worrisome. Is there any way we can convince you guys that you need a larger, much more visible community management team?" or similar questions.

[dervishx5]

Deathlike, on 16 June 2016 - 04:29 PM, said:

You know, the thing is... even every black knight to this game was actually nice once upon a time. Multiple years of indifference by PGI to address things correctly through action/inaction only reaffirms the truth.

It doesn't matter either way... because... buy a mechpack?

YOU HAVE NO CONCLUSIVE PROOF THAT PGI IS INDIFFERENT!

[Alistair Winter]

Deathlike, on 16 June 2016 - 04:29 PM, said:

You know, the thing is... even every black knight to this game was actually nice once upon a time. Multiple years of indifference by PGI to address things correctly through action/inaction only reaffirms the truth.

It doesn't matter either way... because... buy a mechpack?

I don't know. I'm pretty sure that Gripsvigil hated PGI even when he was in his mother's womb.

[Deathlike]

Alistair Winter, on 16 June 2016 - 04:33 PM, said:

I don't know. I'm pretty sure that Gripsvigil hated PGI even when he was in his mother's womb.

I dunno, I hear waifu pillows are making the rounds and are a thing at PGI.

It's the only thing that gets our balance overlord through the day... or so I'm told.

[Wintersdark]

Alistair Winter, on 16 June 2016 - 11:09 AM, said:

He did that during the first town halls, the ones that were actually well received, when he explained why PGI made a lot of seemingly dumb choices that were actually pressured by IGP, like the infamous gold mechs.

Listen, I'm one of the loudest voices when it comes to arguing that PGI has made a catastrophical error in limiting their interactions with the fans. We have a community manager that doesn't talk much to the community (and none of them ever have), we have vlogs that are highly irregular and seem poorly planned (questions are really weird, a lot of popular suggestions for cockpit items were ignored, etc), we have Town halls where players can't interact with Russ and Ask the devs was gradually limited and finally eliminated. We're left with Twitter.

To me, it's weird to even call it a Town Hall. From Wikipedia: Typically open to everybody in a town community and held at the local municipal building, attendees generally present ideas, voice their opinions, ask questions of the public figures, elected officials, or political candidates at the town hall.

Do you see any attendees who get to present ideas, voice their opinions and ask questions? Nope. It's not really a Town Hall meeting, it's more like a public interview, really. It's not even a debate. NGNG asks cherry-picked questions from their own members (who are a fraction of a fraction of the MWO community), filtered by moderator and Russ answers their questions and then says the things he's there to say.

So I'm not donning any kind of white armour here. But I do think it has some merit that Russ is going to explain all the stuff that is coming, even when you take into account all the criticism above.

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.

[CK16]

Quote

Russ, how many decent Apples are you feeling your self are left in this current barrel to be picked out? How many "Green" ones and how many "Red" ones are in this batch?

Thanks!

I know I ask this, but I am actually interested in what we might get still from the barrel you know? Before we have to crack the new one, how many does he want to pluck out.

[kesmai]

What we get in the TH:
Lot's of evasive garble.
True facts that are outright false.
Some completely meaningless statistic garble.
More garble.
At least 5x the phrase 'we are working on it'.
At least 1 'feature is delayed because of technical garble'.
Some 'subtle' teasers for rampant idiots to make the months most important post on the forum.
More garble.
When pressed> evasive garble.
A chat that is more entertaining than Russ ever could be.
And a new mech. Or two. Or three.
And of course padding his back for the bestest biggest patch ever.

Edited by ARP Haruna, 17 June 2016 - 03:00 AM.

[SmoothCriminal]

Hopefully lots of info/data/screenshots on the re-scale. Excited for the awesome remodel. For too long have those fatties sat collecting dust in my mechbays.

[Alistair Winter]

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
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.

I disagree that this represents the majority of the questions or the questions that the majority of attendees want to see answered. It's been a while since people even bothered asking questions before the Town Hall (people slowly realized it was pointless), but the most popular questions (i.e. most Likes) were usually good questions. And they got ignored.

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

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.

That's still an interesting question, in my mind. There's a few different answers, which are all vague, but useful.

• In the near future
  
• We're working on it.
  
• Not working on it, but we plan to have it some day.
  
• No plans

Very vague, but it's interesting to know that they're actually working on PVE and Solaris, for example. For a long time, PGI didn't mention those two at all. There's a number of things that are always interesting to check with Russ, to see if it's on or off the table, like melee, knockdowns, collision damage, offline PVE, coop PVE, etc.

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

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.

I don't expect that at all. But the grey area comes from the fact that they are acting as if they represent the community, when they're actually PGI employees, in effect. It would be perfectly alright if they were very open about their role as PGI employees, but the information is not readily available.

If you click the Community tab on the MWO website, you see a big link to NGNG. If you go to the NGNG website, there's no information about their relationship with PGI (since, after all, not all NGNG members are getting paid by PGI, it's just the guys who happen to be doing the Town Halls). If you check the Community section of the NGNG website, you see stuff that is actually from the community. Sarna, Reddit, Smurfy, etc. Those guys aren't paid by PGI, so it makes sense to list them as the community.

Is it a big deal? No, obviously not. However, the lack of transparency is definitely a bad thing.

[DarthHias]

I just hope Russ has a plan what he wants to say and that it will be presented in a sensible, conclusive manner.

[NoiseCrypt]

Why is it so hard for some people to understand that bad questions get bad answers?
Maybe if all the spoiled and abusive drama queens would keep quiet and listen for once, they would actually hear/understand what was being conveyed

[Tom Sawyer]

NoiseCrypt, on 17 June 2016 - 04:56 AM, said:

Why is it so hard for some people to understand that bad questions get bad answers?
Maybe if all the spoiled and abusive drama queens would keep quiet and listen for once, they would actually hear/understand what was being conveyed

Its not so much listening and hearing its PGI actually following through with the "We have GREAT plans" instead of endless pssstt check out this mech pack, shiny so shiny

[Sjorpha]

I don't see a problem with NGNG being PGI's PR department.

I DO see a problem with answering questions from your own PR department and calling it a "Town hall".

[SmoothCriminal]

Tom Sawyer, on 17 June 2016 - 05:01 AM, said:

Its not so much listening and hearing its PGI actually following through with the "We have GREAT plans" instead of endless pssstt check out this mech pack, shiny so shiny

Agreed - the forum nay-sayers would be much less vocal if PGI was offering up actual content. The new map team is definitely a step in the right direction but beyond the re-scale and a myth of some GH replacement chaos there is nothing new on the horizon (that we know about anyway).

But there is a tournament - and a hundred new mech packs.

[NoiseCrypt]

Tom Sawyer, on 17 June 2016 - 05:01 AM, said:

Its not so much listening and hearing its PGI actually following through with the "We have GREAT plans" instead of endless pssstt check out this mech pack, shiny so shiny

Following through with "GREAT plans" usually takes more than a couple of years when developing software. And if you don't want to end up with something useless, you do it in small iterations. So their approach to these "Great plans" is good.

SmoothCriminal, on 17 June 2016 - 05:05 AM, said:

Agreed - the forum nay-sayers would be much less vocal if PGI was offering up actual content. The new map team is definitely a step in the right direction but beyond the re-scale and a myth of some GH replacement chaos there is nothing new on the horizon (that we know about anyway).

But there is a tournament - and a hundred new mech packs.

two new maps, a new game mode, revised FW, and new stuff being talked about this Town Hall.... nooo... no new things at all....no....

Edited by NoiseCrypt, 17 June 2016 - 05:10 AM.

[Johnny Z]

I got one question. What color crate is the gold ammo in?