289 replies to this topic

[BLOOD WOLF]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 09 August 2016 - 03:41 AM, said:

Hell, any real communication that doesnt involve Twitter or Facebook would be nice. How long has it been since Bryan, or Russ or Paul actually interacted with people HERE?

And if theyre too afraid to interact with us here on these, THEIR OWN forums, then that says enough to be honest

to be honest, with the way ive seen you respong I wouldnt dare make a reply post if i was russ.

Tina i cant understand why she doesnt post, but everyone else I can dang for sure know why they dont post here anymore

[Bud Crue]

BLOOD WOLF, on 08 August 2016 - 09:42 PM, said:

theres virtually no money if there are no mech packs. What would you do if you were the president of the company? charge me for what? dropping in a match

maybe people buy MC every now and then. if you look at it thats the major thing they sell. its not as if mechs are ever the only item in a patch.

From my perspective there are about a zillion things they could charge for that the rabid fans of this IP would gladly pay for. Here are some that have been proposed before:

- A subscription fee to access some sort of Map design tool, so as to allow players to aid in developing new maps.
That one just slays me because this is players actually asking PGI for the opportunity to pay PGI to do PGI's job for them. Think about that. I believe I first read that proposal in 2014.

- Individual components based on lore brands.
This is not pay to win. There would be basic weapons that all mechs come with as part of normal purchases. They could make branded weapons and components that have slight benefits with equivalent countering negatives (+10 percent damage gets +10percent heat or -20% range, etc.). If that is deemed to difficult or game breaking just go with the lore based names for a variety of components -without any stat changes- and as long as the components look distinctive people would buy them. Versions of this have been proposed for years.

-Link maps to mech packs. Alas, this requires the customer base to have a bit of faith in PGI so it is probably a no go at this point, but it would be worth a try: Example: New mech is the Crusader. Goal in pre-order is to sell 20K basic packs. If the 20K goal is made we can fund a new map to be released with the Mech. Make the link between map and mech pack to encourage purchase of said mechs. One ought to be able to do this with any feature.

Point is that some clever person ought to be able to figure away to link customer purchase and enthusiasm over mechs to get other features, like new maps, into the game so that folks have even more motivation to purchase content.

- Very sort term events with an entry fee. Think of it as Solaris but with the existing infrastructure. Example: Tuesday night Solaris event: light's only leader board brawl in QP. Entry fee is 500 MC. Winner gets 2500MC other top five get a 1000MC. Event lasts for three hours.
(MC numbers are out of my rear, someone smarter than I would have to do the cost benefit to figure out what is a good fee and good reward, but I think you get the idea.)

I am sure that there are lots of ways for PGI to monetize the game. The above have been proposed for a long time, and most would appear to take very little effort.

Alas, I do wanna buy a mech pack. But I don't think I will.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Its all about how you respond to people. If you just condescending towards them all the time then they dont want to interact. Theres something called inter-personal relationships(no its not romantic) in which people communicate.


If you guys want them to come back to the forums and start communicating and being a part of the community here, then you have to change the way you address people. Some of us are capable of communicating with people without belittling them, others cant. Its not the people who can talk that they dont want to come back, its the people who dont want to talk, thats the reason they dont come

Bud Crue, on 09 August 2016 - 03:54 AM, said:

From my perspective there are about a zillion things they could charge for that the rabid fans of this IP would gladly pay for. Here are some that have been proposed before:

- A subscription fee to access some sort of Map design tool, so as to allow players to aid in developing new maps.
That one just slays me because this is players actually asking PGI for the opportunity to pay PGI to do PGI's job for them. Think about that. I believe I first read that proposal in 2014.

- Individual components based on lore brands.
This is not pay to win. There would be basic weapons that all mechs come with as part of normal purchases. They could make branded weapons and components that have slight benefits with equivalent countering negatives (+10 percent damage gets +10percent heat or -20% range, etc.). If that is deemed to difficult or game breaking just go with the lore based names for a variety of components -without any stat changes- and as long as the components look distinctive people would buy them. Versions of this have been proposed for years.

-Link maps to mech packs. Alas, this requires the customer base to have a bit of faith in PGI so it is probably a no go at this point, but it would be worth a try: Example: New mech is the Crusader. Goal in pre-order is to sell 20K basic packs. If the 20K goal is made we can fund a new map to be released with the Mech. Make the link between map and mech pack to encourage purchase of said mechs. One ought to be able to do this with any feature.

Point is that some clever person ought to be able to figure away to link customer purchase and enthusiasm over mechs to get other features, like new maps, into the game so that folks have even more motivation to purchase content.

- Very sort term events with an entry fee. Think of it as Solaris but with the existing infrastructure. Example: Tuesday night Solaris event: light's only leader board brawl in QP. Entry fee is 500 MC. Winner gets 2500MC other top five get a 1000MC. Event lasts for three hours.
(MC numbers are out of my rear, someone smarter than I would have to do the cost benefit to figure out what is a good fee and good reward, but I think you get the idea.)

I am sure that there are lots of ways for PGI to monetize the game. The above have been proposed for a long time, and most would appear to take very little effort.

Alas, I do wanna buy a mech pack. But I don't think I will.

im not gonna put it down. Put it to the community and see what people think. I think your Solaris idea is really great.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 09 August 2016 - 03:58 AM.

[Bud Crue]

BLOOD WOLF, on 09 August 2016 - 03:56 AM, said:

Its all about how you respond to people. If you just condescending towards them all the time then they dont want to interact. Theres something called inter-personal relationships(no its not romantic) in which people communicate.

Your talking about mutual respect. PGI has made clear that they don't respect its community of players and customers.

I have pointed this out before but go back and look in the forums at any point where the community drove a fix, and see PGI's initial response of "no, no you're wrong this (flammer, minimap, invincible Arctic Cheetah (right after it dropped), excessive range IS energy weapons quirk, etc.) is working as intended". Then see the subsequent "official" hot fix notes or announcement by Russ et al. stating something along the lines of "oh we knew all along that this feature (see parenthetical above) had a bug and we have now fixed it." They do this every time.

They pretend that the input of the community in identifying and giving feedback on the whatever problem never happened. Its almost like they can't stand the idea that the community just helped them. That the community is more invested in the game than they are. That the community is actually a valued resource that can be used to make the game better. That the community is a resource that has value to offer.

You want mutual respect? Here is a start to achieving it: when that community helps identify the errors and problems in "your game", rather than pretending that they don't exist, instead consider, perhaps just saying "thank you".

[BLOOD WOLF]

Bud Crue, on 09 August 2016 - 04:22 AM, said:

Your talking about mutual respect. PGI has made clear that they don't respect its community of players and customers.


You want mutual respect? Here is a start to achieving it: when that community helps identify the errors and problems in "your game", rather than pretending that they don't exist, instead consider, perhaps just saying "thank you".

No i wasn't talking about mutal respect, you are the one that brought that up. Give me some evidence recently that information regarding a problem was ignored. Your example is clearly over-exaggerated.

what is clear is that some people feel slighted and that littarly is all to clear most time the post.

I can understand criticism, i can understand not liking a certain move, but you clearly bringing things up that happened a long time ago, or your refusing to acknowledging anything that's either done, or too be done.

I dont remember russ calling any player here the names ive seen some call him. I dont understand, the crying over him being disrespectful to you and yet you sit their and say somebody should act and treat you better than you do them. I dont even understand the kind of world where that is possible.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 09 August 2016 - 04:35 AM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

If you want to sit down and have a conversation with somebody about subject X, then you gotta leave the personal part out of it. Come at it objectivly, if you cant do that, then its a fools game expecting somebody to start a conversation that your not willing to have. Everything aside, what we are talking about here is communication here.

Something has to give, if your not willing to open a new door, then why should anyone else. For all russ can care, he doesn't need to be here. none of the devs need to be here. But dont stand there and tell me it can not be fixed.

[Spleenslitta]

It's perfectly obvious that PGI cannot keep themselves up to date on all these threads 24/7. I do not blame them for that.

The feature suggestion section of the forums was supposed to be the way for us to give PGI ideas on how to balance the game and all kinds of things.
Could you guys list how many things have come from the feature suggestion part of the forums because the community demanded it?

First on the list. The Urbie.

[Bud Crue]

BLOOD WOLF, on 09 August 2016 - 03:56 AM, said:

Its all about how you respond to people. If you just condescending towards them all the time then they dont want to interact. Theres something called inter-personal relationships(no its not romantic) in which people communicate.

If you guys want them to come back to the forums and start communicating and being a part of the community here, then you have to change the way you address people. Some of us are capable of communicating with people without belittling them, others cant. Its not the people who can talk that they dont want to come back, its the people who dont want to talk, thats the reason they dont come

BLOOD WOLF, on 09 August 2016 - 04:25 AM, said:

No i wasn't talking about mutal respect, you are the one that brought that up. Give me some evidence recently that information regarding a problem was ignored. Your example is clearly over-exaggerated.

Dude, your description of inter-personal relationships is sort of founded on mutual respect, or are you asserting that you can achieve the sort of communication you are talking about iwithout mutual respect? Good luck with that.

As to the rest, I didn't say they ignore problems, rather that they ignore the community's input in addressing those problems.
I listed several examples of this. I am not going to link all of the threads posting complaints and cross reference those with Russ twitter feed saying essentially "problem, what problem", then the official announcement on the fix that says "oh yeah we knew the was broken from the get go. But here is one:

Minimap official announcement asserts that they knew it was broke.
http://mwomercs.com/...e-new-mini-map/

That came after Russ repeatedly lauded it as working as intended, then grudgingly well maybe it isn't optimum for all users, etc. on his twitter feed.

Which came after the initial input from the community loudly exclaiming "this thing sucks".

See the others I listed above. Its all out there. Just gotta go back and look to forums and Russ' twitter feed. Everytime the community points out an error PGI tells them they are wrong, and then "fixes" it none the less, all while asserting that they knew about the error the whole time, even when Russ is actively stating that there is no error. That is not respect, nor is it effective communication.

Edit: See also the dozens of threads about Long Tom, its nerfs, and the round table discussion. It is obvious there is problem with it...it has been nerfed multiple times after all, but each time the communities effort in providing that awareness to PGI has been ignored.

Edited by Bud Crue, 09 August 2016 - 04:54 AM.

[DJ Mitchell]

To add another view:

- I don´t know who Tina is, she was mentioned in this thread often.
- The guy named Russ usually announces new mechs on Twitter which then gets reposted by players here in the forum, otherwise no idea who he is.
- And Alex is the one who is responsible for the mechs art work, right ?

- And somewhere there is a pod cast about something game related, right ?

- Considering game updates I personally like "management summaries" I don´t need community mods with a high quantity of posts but quality of information.

Also who ever is community manager atm, I guess has more and better to do, then being on the forums 24/7 to ask everybody if they're feeling well and if not, why they 're disgruntled today.
I understand that the " old inhabitants of the forum" are low on spririts over the course of the years, as it seems they feel not treated well.

Idea: Keep it simple.

- So far the patch notes are a good example, short brief overview about what is to come and links to further details like mech quirk changes with change development.
I can read it in 5-10 mins feel informed have an overview and good.

This would be my proposal from community side to PGI, standardized short brief monthly management summary and that´s it.

Make an annoucement post ->allow only serious constructive questions under it -> everything else gets deleted -> close thread a week later -> deal with questions -> annouce answers either within a week or next monthly management summary and done.

Also this way you can easily see which topics generate an high interested, make statistics and so without much hasle and constant scanning, reading tons of forum posts.

Edited by DJ Mitchell, 09 August 2016 - 05:02 AM.

[BLOOD WOLF]

Bud Crue, on 09 August 2016 - 04:49 AM, said:

Dude, your description of inter-personal relationships is sort of founded on mutual respect, or are you asserting that you can achieve the sort of communication you are talking about iwithout mutual respect? Good luck with that.

As to the rest, I didn't say they ignore problems, rather that they ignore the community's input in addressing those problems.
I listed several examples of this. I am not going to link all of the threads posting complaints and cross reference those with Russ twitter feed saying essentially "problem, what problem", then the official announcement on the fix that says "oh yeah we knew the was broken from the get go. But here is one:

Minimap official announcement asserts that they knew it was broke.
http://mwomercs.com/...e-new-mini-map/

That came after Russ repeatedly lauded it as working as intended, then grudgingly well maybe it isn't optimum for all users, etc. on his twitter feed.

Which came after the initial input from the community loudly exclaiming "this thing sucks".

See the others I listed above. Its all out there. Just gotta go back and look to forums and Russ' twitter feed. Everytime the community points out an error PGI tells them they are wrong, and then "fixes" it none the less, all while asserting that they knew about the error the whole time, even when Russ is actively stating that there is no error. That is not respect, nor is it effective communication.

"It became abundantly clear once the patch was live however that too much of the redesigned Mini Map was in anticipation for features not yet implemented."

I actually read through it for context. I didnt see them solely taking credit for anything. Rather the wording they used could be suggestive.

, "we used this opportunity to fundamentally re-evaluate the Mini Map as a whole:"

Dude i think you are doing something we call the phenomina of seeing patterns where there are none. I think you are taking certain words and applying a pre-convinced notion of what they mean.

It is never implied that the ideas were solely theirs. Only thing i can draw at the end of the day is that since they are the ones making the final decisions the writing will reflect that.

Anybody can apply any meaning they want, or interpret it in different ways. Do you ever stop to think that maybe you might be looking at certain things without proper evaluation. Or are you just more perfect than the rest of us.

Edited by BLOOD WOLF, 09 August 2016 - 05:13 AM.

[MechWarrior319348]

"A bullet in the head solves everything."

- Commander Shepard

[Almond Brown]

It would seem that what is needed is a definition of who exactly is the "Community". If the 100 players who spend a lot of time on here think "they" are the "Community", then perhaps therein lies the real issue.

The Forums lost almost all of its credibility way way back with the 3PV debacle they themselves created. Ever since then, PGI knew that they were pretty much having to go it alone, and did exactly that.

Turns out that the once "cute" idea of being an "Islander" was just further souring of relations with the Dev Team. I hope those who got their free cockpit "Island" item really enjoy it, and they should take a picture of it for prosperity just in case the Dev decide they have had enough and simply move on, surely to take all the hate of the "community" with them where ever they might try and go.

Forums are what they are and always will be, likely. They start out all nice and cozy, friendly and then something just happens every time.... That something, sadly, is never a good thing and here is no different. Once you boil off the initial excitement and get down to real game design choices, those who only like the sweet bits can only seem to offer their own bitter bits in return.

[Deathlike]

Almond Brown, on 09 August 2016 - 05:13 AM, said:

The Forums lost almost all of its credibility way way back with the 3PV debacle they themselves created. Ever since then, PGI knew that they were pretty much having to go it alone, and did exactly that.

I like how faulty information is used here.

PGI themselves said they wouldn't implement it, only to be implemented anyways.

Imagine PGI adding something to the game that you explicitly mention that you didn't want, and ignored you anyways. People don't react kindly to this.

The reverse is just as problematic. If you promise things inevitably never get added to the game (like role warfare), people do take notice to that too.


There's a concept called "taking you at your word"... and once that's broken... people will be reminding you and everyone else that you can't even be held to the standards you hold for yourself (including something as simple as self-imposed deadlines for the roadmap post).

[Alistair Winter]

An interesting thing about the feedback in this thread is how many people responding are players who invested heavily in the game. The whales who spend more cash than a hundred other players combined. I myself have spent hundreds of dollars, and there are people who dwarf that contribution.

Oderint dum Metuant, on 09 August 2016 - 01:39 AM, said:

Don't waste your time on rosey. He is afflicted worse than Bishop ever was.

Which one is rosey? I could guess, but I don't want to be rude.

TELEFORCE, on 09 August 2016 - 02:17 AM, said:

I'm unhappy because there isn't enough fluff or lore in this game about a universe rich in fluff and lore.

Yeah. One of my major grievances about this game.

http://mwomercs.com/...-of-grievances/

That thread seemed to get some support from the players on the forum. Would have been cool if our community manager acknowledged that. Weren't even my ideas, just stuff I knew that the players care about.

[Bud Crue]

BLOOD WOLF, on 09 August 2016 - 05:12 AM, said:

"It became abundantly clear once the patch was live however that too much of the redesigned Mini Map was in anticipation for features not yet implemented."

I actually read through it for context. I didnt see them solely taking credit for anything. Rather the wording they used could be suggestive.

, "we used this opportunity to fundamentally re-evaluate the Mini Map as a whole:"

Dude i think you are doing something we call the phenomina of seeing patterns where there are none. I think you are taking certain words and applying a pre-convinced notion of what they mean.

And you are ignoring context. In the case of the mini map the link above is the end of the sequence. The historical context starts with the original "fix" and the community exploding over it's utter fail of functionality. You ignore the additional context of the June town hall where Russ said he intended the mini map to be re-done to eliminate direction and detail. The context of his twitter feed asserting that all of this was intentional and that the new version was working as intended...until he decided that it wasn't. Add that context to the posted fix and it is most certainly clear that I am not seeing a pattern where there is none.

The pattern is indeed there. Go back and look at flammers and how they were fixed, and then fixed again. The on going issues with long tom: Russ repeatedly saying it is working as intended, yet nerfing it twice and having a round table where alternatives were discussed. These things happen and continue to happen.

But of course none of that history matters. None of those easily verified sequences of events are relevant. I get it.
You insist we be objective in our communications with PGI and that is what I have tried to do, by pointing out historically verifiable sequences of events wherein PGI has provocatively ignored community input. Yet, you assert I am seeing patterns where none exist. Okay.

[Cappy]

Why do I get the feeling Bishop is really bad at most competitive video games and irrationally angry about it?

[Sjorpha]

BLOOD WOLF, on 09 August 2016 - 05:12 AM, said:

"It became abundantly clear once the patch was live however that too much of the redesigned Mini Map was in anticipation for features not yet implemented."

I actually read through it for context. I didnt see them solely taking credit for anything. Rather the wording they used could be suggestive.

, "we used this opportunity to fundamentally re-evaluate the Mini Map as a whole:"

Dude i think you are doing something we call the phenomina of seeing patterns where there are none. I think you are taking certain words and applying a pre-convinced notion of what they mean.

It is never implied that the ideas were solely theirs. Only thing i can draw at the end of the day is that since they are the ones making the final decisions the writing will reflect that.

Anybody can apply any meaning they want, or interpret it in different ways. Do you ever stop to think that maybe you might be looking at certain things without proper evaluation. Or are you just more perfect than the rest of us.

Who cares what wording is used really?

The issue is that they released a feature so broken that not even a reasonable amateur would allow it to go live after a 2 minute test, much less a professional. That is not an exaggeration IMO, and it is true of several things they have released, Long Tom being another example.

It's simply a bit too blatantly incompetent for the customers to swallow, it's like forgetting to put the wheels on a car and clearing it for shipment. It's just beyond the map of reasonable margin of error for a business.

They do this repeatedly. No amount of communication or "mutual respect" is going to help, the only thing that would help is to stop doing things like that for long enough that trust is rebuilt among the customer base.

Responsibility for every aspect of a product or service is on the seller, it makes no more sense to blame the player base for the state of a game than it does to blame the visitors of a cinema for a crappy movie.

Sure it would be nice if everyone was nice, but a more important consideration should be doing your job well enough to satisfy the customers with the product, simply because it is of good quality, and not because you're good at making excuses.

Edited by Sjorpha, 09 August 2016 - 06:32 AM.

[Big Tin Man]

Bud Crue, on 09 August 2016 - 03:54 AM, said:

- Very sort term events with an entry fee. Think of it as Solaris but with the existing infrastructure. Example: Tuesday night Solaris event: light's only leader board brawl in QP. Entry fee is 500 MC. Winner gets 2500MC other top five get a 1000MC. Event lasts for three hours.
(MC numbers are out of my rear, someone smarter than I would have to do the cost benefit to figure out what is a good fee and good reward, but I think you get the idea.)

They probably couldn't charge an entry fee (legal gambling reasons), but a 3 hour long prime time window fight event sounds pretty cool. The problem is people would want them somewhat often, and as with so many other good things PGI has done, after the 4th or 5th one they'll be forgotten about (RIP Comstar intercepts, Devlogs, Meet the Developers broadcast, secret cbill sales, etc).

It would be pretty darn easy to setup a standing leaderboard event every Tuesday night from 7-10 pm (probably need to do one for the EU and Aus as well) and rotate through chassis. This might even get people in the 'habit' of playing MWO. Regular scheduled community events announced more than 36 hours in advance? AMAZING.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Alistair Winter, on 09 August 2016 - 05:34 AM, said:

Which one is rosey? I could guess, but I don't want to be rude.

The red poodle.

[Mudhutwarrior]

BLOOD WOLF, on 09 August 2016 - 03:56 AM, said:

Its all about how you respond to people. If you just condescending towards them all the time then they dont want to interact. Theres something called inter-personal relationships(no its not romantic) in which people communicate.


If you guys want them to come back to the forums and start communicating and being a part of the community here, then you have to change the way you address people. Some of us are capable of communicating with people without belittling them, others cant. Its not the people who can talk that they dont want to come back, its the people who dont want to talk, thats the reason they dont come


im not gonna put it down. Put it to the community and see what people think. I think your Solaris idea is really great.

Do you have any understanding of what has transpired here over the years? Any?

None of this developed overnight. It took a long time for PGI to alienate most of the thinking base. The morons well they stay the same but the rest of us are just tired of it.