18 replies to this topic

[Kynesis]

Today, thanks to randomly checking a thread on Reddit I learned about the existence of Armored Warfare.

I've spent a lot of time today learning about it and watching gameplay footage and dev talks.
Even as an obvious clone of WoT, it's awesome.

It's also in beta and the developers Obsidian Entertainment have been told by the company funding the project to release it as-is (only adding things to sell).

https://www.reddit.c...hat_went_wrong/

Use your Google-fu to look up features & gameplay vids, I don't have any to link as particularly special examples & want to keep this post relatively short.

Obsidian created it in CryEngine 3. MWO lives in CryEngine 3 - they've got the 'chops'.

Obviously development tends to tailor engines and workflows but given they were able to build Armored Warfare from the ground-up, I have to imagine that Obsidian could learn PGI's systems.

MWO desperately needs the kinds of features and talent that Obsidian has showcased in Armored Warfare - it seems like Obsidian needs work and that their interests are aligned almost ideally with what I imagine PGI's must be.

Can anyone talk to Russ about talking to Obsidian to talk about some kind of collaboration work on MWO?

If Obsidian is interested and in a viable position, I find it difficult to conceive of a greater opportunity for PGI to push MWO to the next level and make it a serious competitor.

MWO 2.0 has a certain ring to it

[razenWing]

Why would people at Obsidian want to abandon their project to "help" MWO?
Why would Russ takes on an entire team of staff on a 4-5 year old game when he has another title already in development?
Why would he go back to CryEngine when he admit as much that CryEngine was a mistake, especially that they are shifting to Unreal for MWV?

Just because a mech game comes up doesn't mean it's a good idea to do some sort of jumbo mesh-up.

[Kangarad]

noes , two teams that cant manage to do stuff besides adding new vehicles/mechs to the game?

would certainly increase the "buy more mechpacks"..
(because think about it, obsidian would eb just as shafted with PGI in teh lead as they have been with any other company)


but I have to decline. Chose someone who actualy does stuff next time.

Edited by Kangarad, 12 April 2017 - 02:03 AM.

[Lupis Volk]

sorry to be the bearer of bad news but Obsidian ain't a part of Armoured Warfare any more. My.com or Mail.ru as thier known as the publisher/bill payer has brought out the game and fired Obsidian. This was months ago.

[razenWing]

I think we all failed on many level of understanding from not actually clicking on the reddit link.

I think the OP meant, if the obsidian team is fired and available, why doesn't PGI pick them up?

Which... is what a lot of Living Legend fans said back in the days. And back then, CryEngine isn't totally dead. So my stance is still relevant that PGI just won't spare anymore cost on a game this old with an engine that's going no where.

Not that I don't want it to happen though...

Hey, if every capable CryEngine programmer can just work on Mechwarrior Online for free for like 4 months at a time... we will have a super kick@ss game in a year or less. But alas, I am more of a pragmatist and the above scenario won't happen. Like period.

Edited by razenWing, 12 April 2017 - 04:16 AM.

[Athom83]

Shame. Balance 2.0 which was coming out in a week would've revitalized the game, fixed most of the problems, and would've made a lot of money for them. Shame on them for kicking out Obsidian.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

Armored Warfare might have had a thing going for, if it were different enough from WoT. It had some good features but it also had a lot copied from WoT.

Now, it seems mostly dead. It hasn't yet even been released as full game, but in open beta you can't play in late evening againts other players, as there are so few of them. And they still have separate accounts like WoT, unlike global accounts like in MWO. I have EU account and I think it's far worse in US server.

People say firing Obsidian as the downfall, but really, if you have a good game being developed, why would you fire the developers. It could not attract enough players since WoT and it overlapped so much and WoT has years of lead. Firing Obsidian entertaiment was just a culmination.

And the whole idea of the game was rather difficult, because it was too much of a clone. Maybe it could have succeeded, but it clearly had a challenge in that.

Edited by Teer Kerensky, 12 April 2017 - 05:18 AM.

[Athom83]

Teer Kerensky, on 12 April 2017 - 05:17 AM, said:

People say firing Obsidian as the downfall, but really, if you have a good game being developed, why would you fire the developers. It could not attract enough players since WoT and it overlapped so much and WoT has years of lead. Firing Obsidian entertaiment was just a culmination.

Did you read the linked article/post? They wanted to do something different but their publisher MailRU said "NO! You make us WoT clone we cater to mother Russia." In fact, balance 2.0 pushes it away from being a "WoT" clone as HP pools and class differences are then done vastly different.

[Tarl Cabot]

http://www.eurogamer...act-termination

Quote

But the person who wrote the post was not an employee of Obsidian nor My.com/Mail.ru nor privy to inside information. Both Feargus Urquhart, and the person who wrote the post, confirmed this to me. The person was a voluntary member of the community, a superuser, and much of the post is supposition.

Interesting. Also in the linked thread here, My.com had been building up their internal team.

Quote

Monetary concerns aside, the move away from Armored Warfare sounds in some ways like a relief. Massively-multiplayer online games are complicated, ongoing services, and it sounds as though Obsidian has had its fill.

"It's funny you should ask about whether Armored Warfare was an unusual project for us," Urquhart told me. "It really was, but we are super proud of what we did with it. Going from nothing at the end of 2012 to launching out to the world for open beta by October of 2015: that was a pretty amazing feat for a non-MMO studio.

"What we did learn is we might not tackle a game like this again. Large MMOs are really beyond the ability of an independent developer to manage unless that developer gets huge and brings in all the other aspects of the business: operations, customer service, live operations, etc.

"Those things all sound interesting, but what is more interesting to us, and to me personally, is focusing on the making of a game. When a studio begins to focus on all those other things, you are all suddenly in a lot of meetings every day that aren't to do with game development.

"So, the answer here is we love making games," he added, "but the challenge with making a large MMO is you can't [help] but get dragged away from the game-making part."

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 12 April 2017 - 05:40 AM.

[Necro Ash]

Played Armored Warfare for quite awhile and enjoyed it a fair amount.

The physics, terrain, weather, day/night, mission types were all quite good.

15v15 combat, PvE co-op missions for grinding, actual armor angle / penetration......

There was a lot in that game that MWO could benefit from, showing possible uses of the Crytek engine that PGI doesn't seem to understand very well.

*shrug* Won't miss AW much, but it is a decent example of engine applications.

Heck, it's F2P so try it PVE for a couple games and it might change whatever opinion about the core engine of Crytek.

Just come back to MWO afterwards, we needs to keep players

[cazidin]

Russ doesn't collaborate, he dictates. While I can admire his adamantium discipline, his narrow focus often hurts the very games he directs.

[MechaBattler]

Company mergers don't just happen. They would need to enter some serious negotiation. They're competitors. Why would Armored Warfare play backseat to improve on MWO? It's just not realistic.

Now if you want them to borrow some ideas. Well that's a different story. World of Warcraft does it all the time.

[Athom83]

MechaBattler, on 12 April 2017 - 08:55 AM, said:

Company mergers don't just happen. They would need to enter some serious negotiation. They're competitors. Why would Armored Warfare play backseat to improve on MWO? It's just not realistic.

Read the post linked in the OP. Obsidian got sacked from AW. Now the Publisher is the new Dev, and the Puppeteer behind the Publisher is the new Publisher.

[Novakaine]

Hell we could have armored vehicles here it Pgi wasn't so shortsighted.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Well, imma bust all ya'lls bubbles and bring ya up to speed. Obsidian is no longer working on Armored Warfare, its all My.fail working on AW.

Id only want OE working on MWo if it meant a PVE mode for MWO......

[Sniper09121986]

Athom83, on 12 April 2017 - 05:29 AM, said:

we cater to mother Russia.

Not true. Mail.ru caters only to their bottom line, pretty much like IGP did. It could be said it has the golden touch of Midas because every venture it touches becomes a totally useless cash-grab, or in the case of games a P2W grind-fest of a particular Asian variety. Russian gamers place it pretty much on par with EA and whatever Bobby Kotick graces with his august presence.

[NextGame]

Kynesis, on 12 April 2017 - 01:48 AM, said:

OP

Obsidian lost a contract and got sacked? Good. Serves them right for kowtowing to morons on twitter over pillars of eternity.

[Revis Volek]

I think they should just stick with HBS.

[Kynesis]

As far as forums go, I think getting half a dozen people to actually read my post and the linked one is a win.
For the people who did actually make an effort, thank you.

Just on the issue of AW being a WoT clone (even though it's covered in the post and elsewhere) - MailRU specifically tendered for a clone of WoT, a game that could be as similar as possible to WoT that they could get away with being just short of sued by Wargaming. Russian game companies apparently have a reputation for this tactic, along with predatory micro-transactions & pay-to-win.

As for Russ being a total dictator... I don't know him. I get a sense that he can be, but it tends to be a trait of people in leadership positions (natural or acquired). Either way, he seems to have opened up in recent months though, so again, I have hope that if people who do know him perform similar research (to the few hours that I spent) there's a real chance of capitalising on a golden opportunity.

Although it's already covered, I want to jump on "mergers never happen..." - Obsidian haven't been paid well by MailRU. If the 2.0 update has been deployed, I imagine MailRU must have finally paid them for it, but they refused for a very long time to pay Obsidian while frankly being {Richard Cameron} during the development of AW. If they still haven't paid Obsidian for that update I would have to think that the relationship is irreparably damaged and that an opportunity for them to transfer their skills to an aligned project of similar scale and intention would seem ideal.
I would think they'd be stoked to have a chance to work on the Mechwarrior franchise.

Getting devs with an Obsidian pedigree on board would be a massive coup, it could well be game changing, in the best way.

They could essentially hit the ground running, bringing the kinds of ideas and fresh blood that MWO desperately needs. Charitably, it would be at best silly not to at least talk to them.