137 replies to this topic

[Lyoto Machida]

Conjure, on 12 December 2016 - 12:04 PM, said:

I missed the part where you were forced to open this thread and post

Why exactly should anyone outside of MS really care though? Just another pointless thread. If the leader of MS did something against ToS, MS players that feel wronged or robbed should report him. Otherwise, what exactly are we discussing here?

[habu86]

Rampage, on 12 December 2016 - 10:32 AM, said:

I am not saying that he stole the coffer. It just goes away with him. I would think that he could have passed command and control of the unit to someone else and the c-bills would not have went poof! I am sure he had his own reason for doing what he did and I am not privy to them.

PGI can not allow C-Bills to be distributed to members because that could potential open the door to "gold" selling ie. the farming and selling of c-bills. C-bills can be purchased in game via MC which is bought for cash. There is no way that PGI is going to open the door for an outside entity to make real money off of their game, rightly so.

Actually, unless I'm, mistaken, Tony's main account is no longer in MS either. I think it's literally a smurf account that's been left there to allow the unit to be reformed if there's ever a point to doing so again.

A lot of the new guys who joined post Phase 3 got shafted. By recruitment fees (~9 mil to get into MS-R, then another ~17 to join MS proper), by C-bill making opportunities that were cut in half even under ideal situations courtesy of the single attack lane and Long Tom (this time last year an MS member could expect to make ~28 mil in maybe 3-4 days' worth of drops), and by dwindling activity levels (most of our DCs, officers, and veterans stopped playing or focused on comp) so they definitely didn't get to experience those things that made MS so much fun to be a part of.

I feel for those new guys, I really do; they got a pretty raw deal (as the new guys anywhere are often at risk of getting) and I hope they have a better experience in their new homes. I also understand how and why a fair few of the old timers took exception to Tony's actions.

But whatever else he might have done, to the best of my knowledge, he didn't get to just walk away with 600 mil. C-bills to splurge on himself, and he did organize an MS event to distribute the unit MC to all members who showed up and took part. So while we can certainly debate the decision's merits and whether it was the right course of action or not, it's worth keeping in mind that this isn't EVE Online.

Edited by habu86, 12 December 2016 - 01:14 PM.

[Novakaine]

[Tom Sawyer]

@Habu

If we could find a way to get PGI to give back some of the lame *** entry fees THEY created I would gladly chip in. Sitting on 1/2 a billion I earned myself.

I can see it both ways

[zolop]

Can't he just create his own unit and then just be on the same teamspeak server to drop with the other units. For example if the unit scale is 8 mill to join now, why not just create another unit and call it a alliance on teamspeak? is it against PGI's policy, even if they are on the same faction?

[Appogee]

So, having killed Faction Play by making it a perpetually uneven contest, and farming it to death, MS was left with no means to feed its own bloated carcass...?*






* I have no idea if this is what happened. I just like the poetic sound of it.

Edited by Appogee, 12 December 2016 - 02:16 PM.

[habu86]

Tom Sawyer, on 12 December 2016 - 01:53 PM, said:

@Habu

If we could find a way to get PGI to give back some of the lame *** entry fees THEY created I would gladly chip in. Sitting on 1/2 a billion I earned myself.

I can see it both ways

I'm with you Tom.

I mean, let's be honest here, most of the c-bill bank MS made came from the long-time veterans who put in literal billions into the coffers so we could break contracts at will and invite folks into the unit. Those stupid entry fees were intended to directly screw over MS but the only thing they did was screw over the more casual units whose C-bill farm rate is lower and the newcomers who may not have had time to get a good return on their investment before CW turned into a wasteland where it took 20 minutes to get a drop - for those who might not know, that's about how long it previously took the average MS member to make about a million C-bills in CW this time last year.

I might not have a half a billion C-bills at my disposal, but I'm always happy to try and do what I can to help folks earn theirs. My only ask is to not bring LRMs or salt.

Edited by habu86, 12 December 2016 - 02:29 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

rip in piece Merk Starz

[nehebkau]

Doesn't seem unreasonable for the unit to ask for a cash donation to offset the high costs of recruiting members. -SO- has to come up with ~16,000,000 cbills to invite someone new. As it stands now we ask for our members to donate to help offset that cost. (do you expect the unit leaders and officers to shoulder all that cost?)

Tom Sawyer, on 12 December 2016 - 11:58 AM, said:

MS still exists. If and when PGI decides to actually make CW work it may reform. We have always been a collection of smaller units that banded together to have fun. But given the state of the game and the decline of player base Tony made the call to disband into our sub units. We still meet on our TS, we still still drop together, we still play. There is a holder in place and who knows, MS may rise again.

Well, in the mean time you are welcome to come drop with -SO-... Nice having old-timers shout at the kiddies to get off our lawn. You don't even have to join a unit as the FRR hub is open to all who are vikings at heart.

Edited by nehebkau, 12 December 2016 - 03:12 PM.

[stillnight]

Are you saying that you paid REAL cash to join their unit? Uhh... what?

[Ibrandul Mike]

I so love this discussion about the ticket costs...

You have an active roster without buy in?
50k per existing member.

You have a (healthy or not, doesn't matter) unit with buy in?
All the costs or a big part have to be paid by the new member. Everyone else pays nothing or a smaller amount.

You have a lot of inactive players?
You are basically screwed. The costs go up for everyone else.


So is it unreasonable to ask for a cash donation to offset the high costs of recruiting new players?
No. But it is unreasonable to penalize a player for the INACTIVE or unsocial players in the unit. I don't know how many new members we are talking about per month... but let's just say 20 ... that means every member of the unit would have to pay 2 million C-Bills per month to the unit coffer. So instead of 16 million for one invite, it would be 2 million for 20! Take the 8 months for the 16 million and you have up to 160 possible new members and it is much easier to get together on a monthly base.
And it would even be a fairer system as what I read here. Unit founder has to pay a total of 50k C-Bill. Next one 100k and so on... sounds absolutely fair and reasonable, right? I mean you were the 21st person in the unit, so you have to pay 1 million C-Bills, while the founder paid only 50k...101st person? 5 million... compared to 50k... absolutely fair and reasonable... 321st person... 16 million... compared to the 50k...

Don't get me wrong... the whole system is a half-baked C-Bill sink in my opinion.
If they really wanted to make big units bleed... a linear progression model isn't the way to go.
If they wanted to make units with many inactive players bleed? Well done. It works, as long as the unit is not giving the costs to new players... what some of them do...

What could have worked better?
They could have chosen the unit size they want (as an example just say 12 man) and after 1/2 or 3/4 of that size start taking a fee. The fee could be quite small and then it could get higher and higher per existing member to discourage big units (if it was targeted at big units and not a "micro" C-Bill sink).
They could have given better tools to monitor the activity in the unit. Even something like "time spent doing FP drops" and "time spent doing QP drops" per month would have been ok.

Is the system fair as it counts for every unit with more than one member?
Depends strongly on the organisation of the unit.
Let's say you have a member limit of 50 people in mind, when founding the unit... then you can get the costs distributed fairly (and have some C-Bills in the coffer, after the 50th person is invited... which could be used to catch minor fluctuations).
If you have a highly fluctuating amount of players or no set maximum number of players, it becomes more work, but it can still be done in a fair way.
If you give the costs totally to new members (which is not really possible, because you still need 50k C-Bills more for the next than for the one before) it is not fair for members joining the unit later.

But back to topic:
OP: Sorry for you to pay and then get kicked out. They can use the C-Bills to rebuild the unit up to a point (but someone had to pay the fee to get you in before...). So I get why you feel like being cheated or as if they stole from you. At least they can't spend the money on mechs or things like that. So it is no scam. And it all depends on how long you were in the unit and what you got out of it. I fear not the equivalent of what you paid for entering

[RestosIII]

stillnight, on 12 December 2016 - 03:15 PM, said:

Are you saying that you paid REAL cash to join their unit? Uhh... what?

Er, what? No. He paid C-Bills. Of course he didn't pay real cash. Jeeze.

[Tom Sawyer]

nehebkau, on 12 December 2016 - 03:08 PM, said:

Doesn't seem unreasonable for the unit to ask for a cash donation to offset the high costs of recruiting members. -SO- has to come up with ~16,000,000 cbills to invite someone new. As it stands now we ask for our members to donate to help offset that cost. (do you expect the unit leaders and officers to shoulder all that cost?)



Well, in the mean time you are welcome to come drop with -SO-... Nice having old-timers shout at the kiddies to get off our lawn. You don't even have to join a unit as the FRR hub is open to all who are vikings at heart.

Always an honor to drop with mighty SO, they even know many flithy drinking songs

[Ibrandul Mike]

RestosIII, on 12 December 2016 - 04:04 PM, said:

Er, what? No. He paid C-Bills. Of course he didn't pay real cash. Jeeze.

We don't know that! He could have bought C-Bills with MC to get the money together...

[RestosIII]

Ibrandul Mike, on 12 December 2016 - 04:06 PM, said:

bought C-Bills with MC

[gagging intensifies]

[TVMA Doc]

Imperius, on 11 December 2016 - 07:34 PM, said:

Who would pay to join any unit?

Here's the real question.

When units first launched I tried to join a few, but too many of them required long interviews then turned me down. I pretty much just stopped trying. I never would have even considered a unit that wanted bribe money up front. I'll donate to groups-for example I also play Star Trek Online and I donate heavily to fleet projects-but it MUST be either minimal or voluntary, and never as a condition to join or something is fishy.

[Lyoto Machida]

TVMA Doc, on 12 December 2016 - 04:32 PM, said:

Here's the real question.

When units first launched I tried to join a few, but too many of them required long interviews then turned me down. I pretty much just stopped trying. I never would have even considered a unit that wanted bribe money up front. I'll donate to groups-for example I also play Star Trek Online and I donate heavily to fleet projects-but it MUST be either minimal or voluntary, and never as a condition to join or something is fishy.

You could look at it as bribe money or the unit trying to recoup their costs for recruiting a new player. I guess in the end, it's still PGI's fault for setting up the unit system as is.

[Davegt27]

I be willing to bet after the new skill tree hits and the owners of MS has all his Mechs

skilled out then MS will be back

just saying

[Kwea]

Marquis De Lafayette, on 12 December 2016 - 09:56 AM, said:

I don't think the unit leader CAN distribute unit coffer C-bills to anyone...including themselves. So, unless I am gravely mistaken this is really PGI's mess and not MS's. Those C-bills are just "going down with the ship" so to speak...not being stolen by someone. That would be a Madoff-like heist...but I don't think it is.

Would love it if c-bills could be distributed...would allow new members to get their dropdecks in order with the unit faster. However, I believe this is precisely what PGI doesn't want. They want players to buy their own mechs, not use c-bills from a vet who has 100 million lying around unused to be able to in effect buy their mechs for them via the unit coffer system.

Everyone knew how the coffer system worked and any unit could in theory fold for any reason and at any time. It's an unfortunately reality than these former MS members are caught up in. The surprise is that it's MS closing its doors.

Except that the unit didn't disband, Antonius Rex still has an alt placeholder in it, so he can restart at any time, using those funds to do whatever he wants at this point.

It was a **** move, but it wasn't to make any money or MC. If he wanted to do that he could have kept the MC in the MS coffers rather than pass it out the last weekend. You CAN distribute MC to individuals as unit leader.

Tom Sawyer, on 12 December 2016 - 11:58 AM, said:

MS still exists. If and when PGI decides to actually make CW work it may reform. We have always been a collection of smaller units that banded together to have fun. But given the state of the game and the decline of player base Tony made the call to disband into our sub units. We still meet on our TS, we still still drop together, we still play. There is a holder in place and who knows, MS may rise again.

http://mercstar.enjin.com/

Not many people will trust Antonious Rex again.

[A Shoddy Rental Mech]

i don't think alot of members got the message.

https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__5518008
https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__5519772

330 members x 50,000 cbills is 16.5 mil cbills per recruit.

having to go through MS-R and pay a double recruitment fee