136 replies to this topic

[Dee Eight]

judging by the QP leaderboards. Last month season 9 ended with a bit over 33,600 players and season 1, nine months ago ended with more than 57,000. This leaves little wonder in my mind why the new clan hero's have as some call it..."P2W" omni pods... fewer players = less revenue so give the whales something new to spend money on. Of course this also has me questioning why keep blowing money on new mechs for a game that has lost so many players in under a year.

[HGAK47]

You see ive been around in other games like this and similar things have happened.... if the customers dont buy things then the lights go out and we all say bye bye to this wonderful game.

Im not saying that PGI always do the best thing as they dont but they do need to make money. I just wish they would try and make it in ways the community will get behind.

If this game had chat channels to help out newer players and places to invite new players to orgs / clans / groups then we might be able to retain more of them.

Hell thats something I want to see and ive been playing on and off since 2012.

[McValium]

@dee eight, the algorithm thats used to fill the leaderboards has been change multiple times.
these days 10 matches played qualified, in season 1 you only needed one match to qualify

[Paigan]

McValium, on 05 April 2017 - 12:29 AM, said:

@dee eight, the algorithm thats used to fill the leaderboards has been change multiple times.
these days 10 matches played qualified, in season 1 you only needed one match to qualify

So it's more like
Season 1: ~43K
vs
Season 9: ~34K

Links:
(select season 1!) https://mwomercs.com...age=2148&type=0
(select season 9!) https://mwomercs.com...age=1683&type=0
(they don't pass the selected season as a URL paramter, argh...)

If you consider only players with 100 or more matches ("really active"), it's
~17.5K vs. ~13.5K

(select season 1!) https://mwomercs.com...page=879&type=0
(select season 9!) https://mwomercs.com...page=678&type=0



As far as spending money is concerned:
I did spend a lot in the past and I would spend more.
But not in Mechs.
We have way more than enough Mechs already.
I would help crowd-fund new maps to then release them for free to all players.
I would pay MC for stored and publicly hosted replays of my matches.
I would pay MC for lore-campaign stuff (maintaining dropships or whatever)
Maybe I would even buy Solaris tickets for MC or however it would work.
But no more Mechs.

I have about 60 and that's already twice as much as I'll ever need.
No more Mechs.
Gameplay content.

Edited by Paigan, 05 April 2017 - 12:51 AM.

[Jehofi]

It is normal that people lose interest. A developer counters this by releasing "interesting" gameupdates to get the players interest back.

Saldy (or maybe luckily) PGI did not deliver on the Update side (Energy draw, Skill tree).

[PyckenZot]

[visionGT4]

MWO is now beyond the PoNR

IS would like balance - theres zero information from PGI as to how they will move foward (new tech changes nothing) | wallets have closed
Comp types want diversity - balance will bring diversity | "want to buy a mech pack"
Clams want to club baby seals - they will accept nothing but total technical superiority and have quite littlery cut of their nose to spite their face | rage quit

GG clams youve destroyed another battletech product & GG PGI for lacking the moral fibre to make the decisive change required to move this product forward.

[Darth Hotz]

Paigan, on 05 April 2017 - 12:45 AM, said:

I have about 60 and that's already twice as much as I'll ever need.
No more Mechs.
Gameplay content.

+1 here!

[Lorcryst NySell]

So, all those toxic, bittervets with wallets closed are once more whining that the game is dying/destroyed by PGI/filthy clammers had what they wanted/ etc ...

And all those toxic bittervets WON'T reopen their wallet, condemning the game ...

Makes perfect sense.

Meanwhile, the 90% of the players that are the silent majority, as usual on MMOs, are enjoying themselves with new 'mechs, new tech, new thingamabobs. And they don't whine.

[DovisKhan]

no reason to cry doom, steam user influx dropped, some stayed, some left, that was to be expected

[Vellron2005]

Here's a few ideas I have of how to bring more players to the game:

1) Add new content - not mechs. Content. This means maps, game modes, objectives, and storied events.

2) Advertise! I'm from Croatia. Most people here have never heard of MWO, but I see World of Tanks or World of warships banners regularly.. why is that?

3) Sponsored factions - appoint PGI employed faction leadership for every faction, wit every faction's TS server, and manage them. Pit them against eachother in a realistic in-game war.

4) Add immersion - make the game more about the story, the honor, the glory and the horrors of war, and less about the next mech pack. You don't need much to do this. Instead of a lucky charms event, have a "Reclaim Procyon" event or "Defend the noble Kurita family" event. Make the events into a story, and add simple mechanics to achieve this.

5) Make people famous - Introduce "play of the day" rewards, news from the front line, and live streams of matches.

6) Lower mech pack prices - Does a mech really have to cost 20$? Why not 15$? or 10$? Would not more people buy them if they were cheaper? How about MC prices? I'm sorry, but for me, the cost of a paint-job and a sandwitch are about the same, and sorry, but I choose a real life meal instead of a mech paint..

7) Introduce more vanity money-sinks - custom mech geometry, custom mech bay geometry, trophy rooms, named weapons and equipment... you can sell us much more stuff that people would buy.. and the cheaper you make it, the more people will be able to afford it..

8) Make it easier for people to learn the game - sponsor/reward trainers and remove MC requirement for personal matches

9) Make a "Mechipedia" section, so new players who don't know about battletech can familiarize themselves with the setting and fall in love with the lore and the game. Its not enough to know that an Atlas is a big bad assault mech. People would LOVE to learn how it came to become that, and why. And how it all works. The more people immerse themselves in the setting, the more people will want to play and spend money on the game.

Ideas for getting more revenue:

1) More customization - custom mech bays, custom mech geometry, custom mech pilot skins, cutomizable rooms like a trophy room, or barracks, or other rooms, display case for trophies, collectable cockpit items with special visuals or sounds if you have a set..

2) Lowering prices - the more people can afford your products, the more people will buy.. 20$ for a mech that will be out for free in 2-3 months is alot.. 5-10$, not so much.. A single mech in a game that has 200+ mechs that costs almost as much as some other full fledged games is too much for many people.

3) Marketing! Your game does not have enough pomp and circumstance, not enough hype.. HYPE IT UP! Make people want to play, make people aware you exist!

4) Make the game more popular by adding quality content described above - more happy players = more paying customers

One would think these things would be self-evident, but since it's still not part of the PGI business model, I hope this would be food for thought to who ever is in charge of such things..

(I know it's probably just a waste of text, but a guy can dream).

[Flitzomat]

https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__5685505

Edited by Flitzomat, 05 April 2017 - 02:46 AM.

[Anjian]

Lorcryst NySell, on 05 April 2017 - 02:04 AM, said:

So, all those toxic, bittervets with wallets closed are once more whining that the game is dying/destroyed by PGI/filthy clammers had what they wanted/ etc ... And all those toxic bittervets WON'T reopen their wallet, condemning the game ... Makes perfect sense. Meanwhile, the 90% of the players that are the silent majority, as usual on MMOs, are enjoying themselves with new 'mechs, new tech, new thingamabobs. And they don't whine.

The vast majority of players in MMOs leave the game eventually, which is why MMOs need a constant diet of new players to keep it alive. If the intake of new players fall below the rate of player churn, then you have a problem.

The stages of an MMO player in a game is perfectly said by a player in another forum.

"The Infatuation interested stage
The Obsessive compulsive stage
The Honeymoon stage
The Contentment stage
The Stagnation stage
The Ambivalent stage
The Bored Stage
The Slightly disgruntled stage
The Fully disgruntled stage
The Angry Stage
The Exit stage left stage"

Edited by Anjian, 05 April 2017 - 02:50 AM.

[Catra Lanis]

Am I the only one stupid enough to think the interface (not ingame) is hard to understand? For example the queue indicator in FW. I did not understand it right away. In engineering school we were told things should be as intuitive as possible to avoid accidents and in general be user friendly.

In this games it's like they've gone out of their way to do the opposite in several areas. This is not good for new players.

[Lorcryst NySell]

And then there are the Living Fossils like me, still playing Ultima Online twenty years after it's launch ... generalizations cannot account for fandom ...

[Lances107]

visionGT4, on 05 April 2017 - 01:22 AM, said:

MWO is now beyond the PoNR

IS would like balance - theres zero information from PGI as to how they will move foward (new tech changes nothing) | wallets have closed
Comp types want diversity - balance will bring diversity | "want to buy a mech pack"
Clams want to club baby seals - they will accept nothing but total technical superiority and have quite littlery cut of their nose to spite their face | rage quit

GG clams youve destroyed another battletech product & GG PGI for lacking the moral fibre to make the decisive change required to move this product forward.

I do not know if you spelled clans incorrectly or just being a jack *** changing it to clams. What I can tell you is the clan players I have talked about do not care about tech superiority. The only damn thing they, and myself care about is getting our damn tons back on scouting and invasions. Thats it. The civil war update is going to change things, and frankly I do not mind that the IS is getting as much tech as they are. To the clan player base, that plays the game, its not our concern. Our concern is getting our asses handed to us because we can not match ton for ton with the IS during faction play due to our gutted drop decks on both scout/invasions. So please do not assume that we want tech superiority. As for what the IS wants, I havent got a clue, what I do know is you guys are constantly on the forums blaming the clan for everything under the sun. Even when you think you got an argument you do not even pretend to line up both sides to see if your claim holds a factual position. I make mistakes, but the statement you just made is just completely wrong.

As for the game is dying. This seems to be the only thing you kids post about from 2010 onward in all online games. DOOOM!

[Bud Crue]

Lances107, on 05 April 2017 - 03:30 AM, said:

As for the game is dying. This seems to be the only thing you kids post about from 2010 onward in all online games. DOOOM!

Don't know about dying or doom, but I do get the vibe that PGI is in sort of auto-pilot, "just give us money for MW5 and we will keep the lights on until then" sort-of mode. I mean consider the loyalty mechs from last year. The Stalker came with 2 extra missile hardpoints, the Phract with 1,etc. PGI retroactively removed hoard points from already crappy mechs on the insistence that the lore required it, and the hard points were a mistake.

Now consider the Resistance Heroes. Community asked for changes to the mechs including a ballistic mount on the Black Knight, some more pizzazz on the Enforcer and the Wolfhound,etc. and PGI said in effect "OK here's your ballistic mount, here is some ECM, we will do whatever it takes aas long as you buy them".

Obviously there is more to it than that, but that is a sign, at least to me, that their concerns have shifted from balance, or lore or being true to some sort of vision and has now shifted to "whatever gets us some cash." I think of the skills tree debacle the same way, and certainly new tech. Bah. I hope I am wrong, but the vibe is there.

[LordNothing]

the game is dieing. everything dies, no exceptions. its like a law of physics or something.

its the rate of death that matters. i dont know of any f2p or subscription games that have made available to their communities the server side applications or source code or anything like that. i have a lot of respect for devs that do source code releases long after the games they made exited their service life, and those games are still being played. og doom has been ported to every device known to man and still thrives because of this. people are still making maps for it. thats where mwo can go, but i have a hunch that its just going to end up getting canned because there is no plan in place to do anything with it before the money runs out, and by that point its too late.

[Jingseng]

That's... a really rough estimate based upon a single metric. I would hazard to say there is a wide margin of error possible there.

In 'mmo' games with no subscription fee, it's really hard to say that a game has truly 'lost players'. Players do come back; they might not stick with it 24/7 the way subscription games encourage, but they also allow for much higher rates of 'recidivism'. I'm sure on the bizEcon side, there are various formulas to approximate the issue into something more fiscally comprehensible, like %player base pausing for X duration, or estimated monthly income flux... but eh? That really important?

Although a lot of people claim to base their purchasing decisions and behavior on the basis of such information, personally I find myself a little skeptical that they truly do: people are not at all rational beings. Besides which, if they did, no project would ever launch - 'Prisoner's Dilemma'. You have no idea how the other players are going to respond, but you yourself are risk averse, so you assume others will be too... in which case the outcome is no one buys in.

That isn't what happens though.

So I think a little alarmist, particularly based on too little data and too little deep analysis, and ultimately not especially meaningful =/ Sorry. You're only feeding the outcome you presuppose.

[Mech Croissant]

Bud Crue, you are right. If anything the skill tree debacle showed that listening to the whining community destroyes the game!