232 replies to this topic

[The Basilisk]

I played MW2 to MW4 Mercs and all expansions. Even the Mech Packs by MekTek. For some year i was even in Clan doing multiplayer combat.

The main things that prevented MW from beeing far more successfull are allready stated.
Too much Simplyfication and too much modification of the Mechs.
And espetially no sophisticated Intel.

According to the Devs this Issues will be *fixed*

[Nik Van Rhijn]

The Basilisk, on 13 December 2011 - 04:00 AM, said:

I played MW2 to MW4 Mercs and all expansions. Even the Mech Packs by MekTek. For some year i was even in Clan doing multiplayer combat.

The main things that prevented MW from beeing far more successfull are allready stated.
Too much Simplyfication and too much modification of the Mechs.
And espetially no sophisticated Intel.

According to the Devs this Issues will be *fixed*

Lets hope so.

[Red Beard]

Kristov Kerensky, on 12 December 2011 - 12:09 PM, said:

My numbers are easily backed up, MW2 series made Activision 70 million USD, and the MW2 GAME, not all the expansions, sold 7 million copies in 3 years. http://www.localditc...or/history.html, as someone ELSE already linked, is where I get the 70 million from, the 7 million copies of MW2 was from Activision, something they were extremely proud to make public in 1997, but can't find that info today, as the division at Activision that created/promoted the MW2 game has been defunct for over a decade now. Sales numbers used to be published, especially if they were good numbers. Sierra/Dynamix was extremely vocal about the fact that Tribes2 sold over 250k copies within 24 hours of release, but good luck finding the PR pieces they did back then TODAY.

And yes, I know the Activision MW2 7 million copies sold includes ALL copies of MW2 they sold..but it WAS MW2, not the addons GBL and Mercs. THOSE are included in the 70 million the series made for Activision. They didn't make 70m off the MW2 game, FASA wouldn't have pulled the license if they had Keep in mind, GBL and Mercs were done AFTER FASA pulled the license, sales of those 2 weren't as high as the original MW2 totals but they made MORE profit from them, all the initial dev work having been done and paid for by MW2. And Netmech..it was free, so it's not factored into the numbers.

MA..I know the game quite well, I got it for myself because it was advertised as THE BTech Mech game for the XBox. And it was just that, the ONLY BTech themed game for the XBox. Sadly, it wasn't actually MechWarrior, nor was it BTech, as I said, MS gutted the franchise and just used the skin to try and fool people. Nothing wrong with the GAME as a game, but it was NOT BTech or MechWarrior. It was a fun giant stompy robot game, purposely designed to be easy to master by the LCD. Sold 4 million copies total for MA/MA2.

Sorry Red Beard, but the best selling and most award winning of the entire BattleTech computer games to date has been MechWarrior2. Part of that is the massive campaign by Activision, which partnered with Thrustmaster to bundle the game with joysticks and with 3dFX to bundle the game with their Voodoo video cards. Joysticks and video cards bought JUST to play the game they came bundled with Crescent Hawks to MA2, none of them have topped the success of MW2, not even the MW2 expansion/addons did as well as MW2.

PGI wants a hit, they only have to look at the history of the BTech video games to see which did the best. It ain't rocket science or Lostech

The link you provided says nothing about 7 million copies. It also mentions that the 70 million USD are spread over every single iteration of MW2. I can hardly see how one could consider that the best selling MW game. From what I can tell, if MA had been "cross-pollinated" the same way, it would have blasted those numbers. As for awards, MA was in the same boat:

http://www.day1studi...x.php/products/

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you need to back up your points with more facts here. I take nothing away from anyone's preferred style of play. But MW2 was only a so-so game, IMO, and was NOT the best seller in the BT series, from what I can tell. It was simply a well marketed game.

[Red Beard]

Seventy Times 7, on 12 December 2011 - 05:54 PM, said:

It may be true in BOXED games that most revenue comes from those walk-up simple players, but in a F2P model, it will be the people who stick with the game and become part of the dedicated community that put down the money to support the developer or add bells and whistles for themselves. It's best to pander to the people who will put money down rather than the casual gamers who will play for free for a few days and drop it.

Indeed, quite the opposite is true. Any F2P game NEEDS the casual base to fill up the ranks. Even if the casual spend no money at all. Penny Arcade had a great podcast on this subject last week. It's worth digging up. The point is, the game needs more simplification in order to make it more accessible to the masses, but this need not be at the expense of real depth. I am a true believer in the KISS way of life. Keep It Simple Stupid. Simplicity never removes depth, only convolution.

[Red Beard]

The only aspect of this game that I would want to see be "arcadey" is in the simple ways that players can access the game. Simulation style play, arcade level ease of access. Money will only flow freely when players can go from game to game to game without anything impeding the fun. If the game becomes too clogged with "simulation" rules and catches, too many players may leave and take their cash with them.

[Jack BeFLippen]

Red Beard, on 11 December 2011 - 12:37 PM, said:

I played MW2 on my first PC, a Pentium 100. I liked it OK...but was not too drawn in. When I played MA, I thought, "THIS is how I like to play mech games." Lots of guys like it the opposite way around, and that's fair. To each his own. I would not be here, in line waiting for MWO if not for the glorious fun I had with MA. I am not alone. That said, I have nothing but respect for those that heavily favor a simulator style game. I am guessing we will see more sim than arcade this time around. Who knows, maybe MA3 will see the sun shine some day.

try Mechwarrior 3 or 4. 2 was a bit slow and kinda the odd ball of the mech games. i played mech assault at a gaming bar with the big screen and the chair that moves around, was very fun i have to say, but taking out 34 waves in a cougar was a bit.. arcade-ish ..unless i was just that good... XD

[Red Beard]

Jack BeFLippen, on 13 December 2011 - 08:14 AM, said:

try Mechwarrior 3 or 4. 2 was a bit slow and kinda the odd ball of the mech games. i played mech assault at a gaming bar with the big screen and the chair that moves around, was very fun i have to say, but taking out 34 waves in a cougar was a bit.. arcade-ish ..unless i was just that good... XD

If only I had "the chair". I may have quit my job. Consider yourself to be of the chosen few that had that pleasure. The cougar is an intense little mech. If you read the manual, the devs mention that the cougar is pound for pound, the nastiest little mech. But thats not to take away from your mad skills.

I did try 3. I have to say that I didn't give it the same chance that I gave 2, being that I played it for a total of one week.

One of the single largest aspects of MA that I loved was the community that built up around it. I didn't find the same thing with the MW games, but that isn't to say they didn't exist, as I am coming to find. Some of the people on this forum are really great and were huge community players of the early MW games, so I have no doubt. MA was so great for those very reasons, and it appealed to my love for fast action, big robot, BT style gameplay.

[Tierloc]

If one of the Mechwarrior video game sold 7 million copies I'm pretty sure I'd see it in places like

http://en.wikipedia...._PC_video_games

The only number referencing sales always seems to apply to the entire video game franchise, which was recently again stated to be 11 million total copies in news breifings on the Tactical Command game for 2012 release.

Based on other games that MWO is going to be competing for attention from, too far into sim will not hold players. I don't want to see armored core.. but I will tell you - recently I was forced to go to Chuck e Cheese for a birthday party. Sure enough they had a pod. It was 3 mecha games, and one was Mechwarrior 4.

Of course I had to take a few of the tokens I got for my daughter and try this bad boy myself. Unfortunately the stick was damaged so it wasn't very responsive turning left. Of course I noticed that.. lol? I was given a stock Thor and had to battle waves of increasing enemies in a city setting.

I would like to see MWO play like MW4 and feel like I'm in that pod, sitting on a set of hydrolics. Not sure how you do that with just visuals, but I think that would be alot of fun.

[StarfyrGuns]

Ya..MW5 was started and scrapped because M$ saw more $$$$$$$$$$$ catering to the xboxers sadly. That was the reason M$ ditched MW4 and the Zone where we all played. They even stated that openly in fact. I remember all of us in our unit standing in the lobby when the plug was pulled. Sad day it was

[Mchawkeye]

Tierloc, on 13 December 2011 - 09:14 AM, said:

If one of the Mechwarrior video game sold 7 million copies I'm pretty sure I'd see it in places like

http://en.wikipedia...._PC_video_games

The only number referencing sales always seems to apply to the entire video game franchise, which was recently again stated to be 11 million total copies in news breifings on the Tactical Command game for 2012 release.

Based on other games that MWO is going to be competing for attention from, too far into sim will not hold players. I don't want to see armored core.. but I will tell you - recently I was forced to go to Chuck e Cheese for a birthday party. Sure enough they had a pod. It was 3 mecha games, and one was Mechwarrior 4.

Of course I had to take a few of the tokens I got for my daughter and try this bad boy myself. Unfortunately the stick was damaged so it wasn't very responsive turning left. Of course I noticed that.. lol? I was given a stock Thor and had to battle waves of increasing enemies in a city setting.

I would like to see MWO play like MW4 and feel like I'm in that pod, sitting on a set of hydrolics. Not sure how you do that with just visuals, but I think that would be alot of fun.

What I read was that it was $70 million in sales for the all of the mech2 games together. to my mind thats three games (mech 2, net mech (as was released seperately) and mech2mercs) say $30 a piece I make that 7,777,77 copies sold each. I admit that's assumptive math, but it might explain it absence on the wiki atrticle.

Or, the other reason it's not on a wiki article? its a wiki article....

[Tierloc]

Mchawkeye, on 13 December 2011 - 10:50 AM, said:

say $30 a piece I make that 7,777,77 copies sold each.

That's only 777,777 - not 7 million.

[Mchawkeye]

Tierloc, on 13 December 2011 - 10:53 AM, said:

That's only 777,777 - not 7 million.

Correct. right number of numbers, fail on the commas. Me ****.

[StarfyrGuns]

Personally, I love MW:LL. Those who don`t must not realise its STILL in an open Beta and things change from time to time. Nothing in there is set in stone as yet. And its not "arcady" at all, which makes me wonder if those who say that have even been IN the game. lol

[Kristov Kerensky]

Red, the 7 million was a number that Activision put out, and that was over a decade ago, good luck finding anything on it today.

Tierloc, that link you posted..go check those names again. Where's Quake2 or Quake3 on that list? They have Quake but not the follow ups, which sold better then the original. And some of their numbers are more then a little off...Neverwinter Nights sold 5 million copies, not 2, and so on. Good luck finding the actual numbers on games a decade out or more, the game info sites simply don't exist any more. I don't see other big name games from over a decade ago in that list, and I see games showing numbers that were NOT attained, like Age of Conan..1 million SHIPPED, not sold, that's more then a bit misleading. And they show 4.7 million for WoW, but the actual number is over 12 million, a fact that Blizzard has beaten EVERYONE about the head and shoulders with!

Oh..and Tierloc, I know you didn't mean to do this, but you showed exactly how bad MW4 was by telling us about seeing it at CEC...that's really quite funny..and sad.

[Holmes]

StarfyrGuns, on 13 December 2011 - 11:04 AM, said:

Personally, I love MW:LL. Those who don`t must not realise its STILL in an open Beta and things change from time to time. Nothing in there is set in stone as yet. And its not "arcady" at all, which makes me wonder if those who say that have even been IN the game. lol

No mech customization = "arcady."

[Mchawkeye]

Holmes, on 13 December 2011 - 11:40 AM, said:

No mech customization = "arcady."

maybe in part...but I think 'arcady' has more to do with control systems and a style of play than a level of customisation.

[Tierloc]

The link I posted is 1 example of top selling games, last updated 12/11/11. There are many other lists like it, but this one has easy to find sources. Since you asked, Quake (1.7 million) and Quake II (1 million) are on there. If you disagree with Quake II, then look below at the source material where the number came from. #80 is http://www.idsoftwar...siness/history/ where id Software says quake II sold more than a million copies. If you want to research each one and provide a different source - that's what it's there for. Neverwinter links to a gamespy story http://pc.gamespy.co...i/536369p1.html saying the developer is releasing a sequel after selling 2 million copies, also in 2004. How long do they track the sales of the game? Forever?? The game was out for 2 years since 2002, so they clocked it and moved on.

If Activision had a story somewhere that they sold 7 million copies of Mechwarrior 2, it would be locatable. MW2 was also released on other platforms that PC, like Playstation. The only total I've seen was a MW2 franchise for 70 million dollars. I guess you could focus on proving the game cost $10 when it was released. It even shipped with AOL (lol). Now that's sad.


I'm sorry you feel that way. Getting to ride around in one of these was awesome.

[Adridos]

The Basilisk, on 13 December 2011 - 04:00 AM, said:

Too much Simplyfication and too much modification of the Mechs.

According to the Devs this Issues will be *fixed*

So they were too arcadish and simulators at the same time. Sounds interesting...

Giving 1st peson only, good tonnage balance - too arcadish fixed
Mech lab with no full customisation (mech that shoots lasers fom every part of body and flushing at the same time, bye) - simulation problem fixed, partly.

[Thorn Hallis]

Never experienced MW2 as an "extremely complex and deep" game besides the choice of so many different mechs (especially in MW2Mercs). It was the feeling that set it apart from other games (especially from MW4), but that might be because of the technical limitations at the time of its release.
MW3 felt nearly the same and was an overall improvement (except for the netcode). Finally a PPC-shot looked like one! And in my humble opinion it had the best controls of every MW game so far. I'd be really happy if MWO take the atmosphere and feeling from MW2 and combines it with the controls of MW3.

[Red Beard]

Kristov Kerensky, on 13 December 2011 - 11:15 AM, said:

Red, the 7 million was a number that Activision put out, and that was over a decade ago, good luck finding anything on it today.

So the basic source for that "number" was your memory?

Tierloc, on 13 December 2011 - 10:53 AM, said:

That's only 777,777 - not 7 million.

That seems more realistic. Though I would not doubt that it "sold" over two million, being that it was so heavily marketed, and it was a pack-in with several cross marketed products. That never hurts.

StarfyrGuns, on 13 December 2011 - 10:01 AM, said:

Ya..MW5 was started and scrapped because M$ saw more $$$$$$$$$$$ catering to the xboxers sadly.

Sad to you perhaps, but they made the right call. MA was a HUGE seller and made piles of cash, directly through sales, and indirectly through a successful launch of their premier online service. They could have taken a page out of Nintendo's horrid N64 launch and made Battlechess Live the first XBOX Live game. That may not have taken as well. Instead they launched with an award winning BT game that players gobbled up like candy. It stil baffles me that another MA game is not in the works. My hunch is that it would outsell and outperform ANY simulator style game they could put out. Why? The market wants action games right now. But that's just my opinion.

Holmes, on 13 December 2011 - 11:40 AM, said:

No mech customization = "arcady."

Being able to custom fit your mech is not an indigenous factor in a simulation, it's just something that fanboys cry for and sometimes get. Most well known simulators, such as Falcon, MS flight simulator, Longbow and others, have no such "mechlabs". Customizing your mech is something that fanboy nerds have become overly spoiled with being able to do. It removes gameplay and deters strategy. It is pointless, IMO. A jetfighter pilot is never given an option as to what his fighter is fitted with, he just flies. Same with a tank commander. Mechlabs are fanboy wetdreams, that's all.

Tierloc, on 13 December 2011 - 11:43 AM, said:

The link I posted is 1 example of top selling games, last updated 12/11/11. There are many other lists like it, but this one has easy to find sources. Since you asked, Quake (1.7 million) and Quake II (1 million) are on there. If you disagree with Quake II, then look below at the source material where the number came from. #80 is http://www.idsoftwar...siness/history/ where id Software says quake II sold more than a million copies. If you want to research each one and provide a different source - that's what it's there for. Neverwinter links to a gamespy story http://pc.gamespy.co...i/536369p1.html saying the developer is releasing a sequel after selling 2 million copies, also in 2004. How long do they track the sales of the game? Forever?? The game was out for 2 years since 2002, so they clocked it and moved on.

If Activision had a story somewhere that they sold 7 million copies of Mechwarrior 2, it would be locatable. MW2 was also released on other platforms that PC, like Playstation. The only total I've seen was a MW2 franchise for 70 million dollars. I guess you could focus on proving the game cost $10 when it was released. It even shipped with AOL (lol). Now that's sad.

Here is a man who I can say, I tend to disagree with often, but knows how to put things into perspective. Well said Tierloc.


In the end, I think I overpaid for my MW2 copy at $50 US. In retrospect, I would not have paid 10 USD, but thats just me.

God bless the Scottish.

Edited by Red Beard, 13 December 2011 - 12:41 PM.