16 replies to this topic

[Toothless]

Having been raised by an alcoholic, I know what its like to have someone say they hear you, are listening, and have your best interests in mind while completely **** faced. They also tend to make lofty promises. You disregard it and kinda, you know, develop a little bit of contempt for them.

To have Russ come out and say over (and over) how much that he actually listens to the MWO community while also being completely **** faced for the umpteenth time on these community interactions, is extremely irritating. Its unprofessional in any sense of the word.

Whether you like or dislike the announcements made, or like or dislike MWO's development over the past six years, one thing that isnt opinion based is that Russ hasnt exactly been known for following through on things he says. Dude is the CEO, he's steering the ship. Theres a lot at stake for PGI with MW5 and a supposed 'revitalization' of MWO with rebranding and supposed expansion. Maybe get a PR rep to do these things (where is Tina...?) instead of a sloshed, slow motion syntaxed Russ ramble on, and on, and on.

Maybe the next Road Map Update needs to be a 12 step program and the addition of a competent speaker to relay information thats considered major to those invested in the game.

*Before anyone white knights getting their drink on hell or high water, I was in the Navy for six years, we saw more booze than ocean water. But you dont see the CO steering a flagship while white girl drunk.

[Bud Crue]

He apparently has to be drunk in order to be coaxed into engaging his customer and player community.
That's fine, but do be aware that this behavior ought to tell you all you need to know about what he really thinks of that community and the extent to which he really "listens" to them.

[Toothless]

Bud Crue, on 03 March 2018 - 06:38 AM, said:

He apparently has to be drunk in order to be coaxed into engaging his customer and player community.
That's fine, but do be aware that this behavior ought to tell you all you need to know about what he really thinks of that community and the extent to which he really "listens" to them.

Trust me, I got that impression years ago.

[jss78]

I dunno, for all I know he could love the franchise and the community exactly as much as he said. I think he's simply not very good at these community engagement situations, and unfortunately deals with this by showing up drunk.

I really respect the work PGI's doing on the game, but I think stuff like last night is just disrespectful, and it's the last time I'll show up for one of those.

At least he didn't break down in tears when he got all misty-eyed about CGA.

Edited by jss78, 03 March 2018 - 07:02 AM.

[Koniving]

I imagine the stress of having it all at stake...rarely doing anything right.. and constantly being judged by his real customer base by which the game often does wrong against while trying to appease his target customer base of foul-mouthed ultra competitive stat-padding killjoys s probably leading to a number of personal issues.

I do wonder about the point of a community manager is.. given that Chris and some others mainly do the interacting, Russ gives the speeches (though typically its Bryan that does the real work as creative director)... That's not to say she isn't working... but she doesn't seem to be working where one might expect her to be working.

jss78, on 03 March 2018 - 07:00 AM, said:

Probably didn't help that one talking point was that there's no plan to salvage CW -- and that it's not the main focus anymore.

Had a suspicion about this.

In fact that might be one of the nails in the coffin here..

It simply doesn't cater to the intended audience of snot-nosed stat-padding killjoys that are all about themselves... Solaris is better suited to them. No team to blame when they do bad, so that they can say they did all the work and actually show something for it... until they blame the lack of accolade collection or "sponsor" issues for their faults. Or bolt ons.. or spectator induced lag.

The rest of us can enjoy watching them play... instead of actually playing. Or fighting for the inner sphere...

[Tier5 Kerensky]

Oh come on, he was drunk maybe, but not seriously wasted, and it was voice only and Friday evening.

[Nema Nabojiv]

Dont know what grievances with Russ you have in mind, but in things I want to happen and which not going to happen he indeed listens to the community:

- 3rd person - community bіtched about how it will ruin their sim experience and we have horribad 3rd person
- 8v8 - half of the people here apparently dont want it because they think 12v12 murderballs is a good thing
- SoloQ in FP - half the community still bіtching about how it will ruin their already half dead mode
- ISXL - half the community dont want it buffed because they wont have an excuse to bіtch about how weak IS is
- Raising TTK as a long term goal - all the people desperately want to pilot an invincible stompy robot without understanding they'll have to shoot equally invincible stompy robots and its not gonna be fun

Conclusion - most of the issues MWO has are there exactly because PGI do what majority of the players want.

[Water Bear]

Nema Nabojiv, on 03 March 2018 - 07:12 AM, said:

- Raising TTK as a long term goal - all the people desperately want to pilot an invincible stompy robot without understanding they'll have to shoot equally invincible stompy robots and its not gonna be fun

Three years ago TTK was 1.5-2 times as long and it was great.

On topic, I don't keep up with the devs of this game much, but a lot of what I've heard about Russ makes me wonder about the guy. Why would it ever seem like a good idea to do a company PR gig while completely sloshed? And wasn't he the guy who wanted the Long Tom in game?

Frankly his judgement sounds rather poor.

[ForceUser]

The stream started 6pm on a Friday and ended like close to 8pm.

I mean if he's drunk at work and during work hours then it'd be a pretty bad scene but is that what's happening?

[Tom Sawyer]

Every time someone buys a mechpack Russ has to take a drink. It's your fault playerbase! ALWAYS.

By the way, locus errrr flea mechpack. Shiny! Buy it! BUUUYYYYYY!

[Lucian Nostra]

I dunno I kinda like the fact that Russ is a guy that can kick back, knockback a few and talk about his product to an audience in an informal manner. I don't hold him to every word he says anymore like I used to but it's nice for me to see that in a way he is a human like me and not just another friggin corporate robot like so many of the larger developers have turned into. I do believe Russ is passionate about MWO and Mech5 but I think 5+ years of this has gotten him to see more realistic goals at the same time (as well as being more careful about making promises and setting deadlines, since we do rip PGI a new one when they miss it).

If it really bothers you than don't watch the streams and instead get your news from things like the production updates, and his twitter where things are a bit more formal.

Edited by Lucian Nostra, 03 March 2018 - 07:43 AM.

[Bud Crue]

ForceUser, on 03 March 2018 - 07:32 AM, said:

The stream started 6pm on a Friday and ended like close to 8pm.

I mean if he's drunk at work and during work hours then it'd be a pretty bad scene but is that what's happening?

He can be as drunk as he wants anytime he wants. But consistently engaging your customers in company advertised events (town halls, production updates, etc.) while drunk presents an image to those customers that those customers can't help but notice. Is that a "bad scene"? Maybe or maybe not. But presenting yourself as the President of a Company where you are talking directly to your customers about the state of the product that you want them to buy -while repeatedly drunk- is going to leave a not unreasonably negative impression in a lot of those customers minds.

Meh. I play the game drunk, Russ presents his production update to us drunk, and of late, it sure seems like they are developing and balancing the game in the same state. All this boozing has apparently lead us to Solaris. Now excuse me, I believe a bit of a morning "hair of the dog" is calling.

[Koniving]

Water Bear, on 03 March 2018 - 07:27 AM, said:

And wasn't he the guy who wanted the Long Tom in game?

In terms of the Long Tom... A lot of players wanted to see it. (There's a lot of excitement when someone pointed out the Long Tom in Battletech by Harebrained, too).

But... It didn't work like a Long Tom.

• One, it isn't aimed by a spotter in the field but automatically trying to find the largest crowd.
  
• Two: After nerfing it was set to do a maximum of 1350 damage to any single mech for as many mechs as were in the field. So you could get a maximum of 16,200 damage delivered if all 12 enemies are in the field (this isn't counting the possibility of friendly damage). This encompassed an area of 270 meters in diameter.
  
• Three: Compare this to Battletech's source version which maxed out at 270 damage for all targets in a 90 meter diameter. Lets say we doubled that to make up for real time and double structure/armor without considering all the **** that's happened to health since then... That's 540 damage maximum... even if you had 12 enemies caught in it.
  
• Four: It was an artillery piece, not a tactical nuclear missile... but that's how PGI depicted it with the massive explosion and all.
  
• Five: It is 5 shells per ton of ammunition. Know what else has 5 uses per ton of ammo? The AC/20. PGI interpreted the AC/20 to have 5 shots (later upped to 6 and then 7) per ton. So why the in the hell would the same people whom believe that to be true, think that this artillery shell of the same weight as an AC/20 cassette or 'use' or in their case a single 'shot'... do up to 16,200 damage when it drops from a 60 ton truck with an additional 3 trailers each harboring 10 tons of stuff... when a 100 ton mech sporting twin AC/20s lobbing twice as much weight in firepower can only do 40 damage?

TL;DR:
We wanted a Long Tom. They practically gave us a tactical nuclear missile because "It looks cool" that is EXACTLY 60 times more powerful than Battletech's Long Tom and can't understand why it broke the game...

Edited by Koniving, 03 March 2018 - 08:08 AM.

[Ted Wayz]

Koniving, on 03 March 2018 - 07:05 AM, said:

I do wonder about the point of a community manager is.. given that Chris and some others mainly do the interacting, Russ gives the speeches (though typically its Bryan that does the real work as creative director)... That's not to say she isn't working... but she doesn't seem to be working where one might expect her to be working.

Careful now. After the first mech fest I asked the simple question why the community manager didn't address the community at the gathering and it turned into one of the most toxic threads I have seen on any forum.

Thought about buying the Solaris Pack as thought Solaris would be good for the game. But when I saw what came with it and realized PGI is doubling down on making MWO a comp FPS...nope. You almost got me Russ!

[Water Bear]

Koniving, on 03 March 2018 - 08:05 AM, said:

In terms of the Long Tom... A lot of players wanted to see it. (There's a lot of excitement when someone pointed out the Long Tom in Battletech by Harebrained, too).

But... It didn't work like a Long Tom.

• One, it isn't aimed by a spotter in the field but automatically trying to find the largest crowd.
  
• Two: After nerfing it was set to do a maximum of 1350 damage to any single mech for as many mechs as were in the field. So you could get a maximum of 16,200 damage delivered if all 12 enemies are in the field (this isn't counting the possibility of friendly damage). This encompassed an area of 270 meters in diameter.
  
• Three: Compare this to Battletech's source version which maxed out at 270 damage for all targets in a 90 meter diameter. Lets say we doubled that to make up for real time and double structure/armor without considering all the **** that's happened to health since then... That's 540 damage maximum... even if you had 12 enemies caught in it.
  
• Four: It was an artillery piece, not a tactical nuclear missile... but that's how PGI depicted it with the massive explosion and all.
  
• Five: It is 5 shells per ton of ammunition. Know what else has 5 uses per ton of ammo? The AC/20. PGI interpreted the AC/20 to have 5 shots (later upped to 6 and then 7) per ton. So why the in the hell would the same people whom believe that to be true, think that this artillery shell of the same weight as an AC/20 cassette or 'use' or in their case a single 'shot'... do up to 16,200 damage when it drops from a 60 ton truck with an additional 3 trailers each harboring 10 tons of stuff... when a 100 ton mech sporting twin AC/20s lobbing twice as much weight in firepower can only do 40 damage?

Interesting summary of facts. When I found out about it and what it did, I couldn't believe they put something like that in the game. It was just phenomenally, obviously a bad idea.

CW in general has seemed like a game mode designed by people who aren't actually game designers. (There's actual a major of study in game design at some art schools - yes, there are people who have devoted much of their lives to a passion for game design).

IMO, CW should be a sandbox. Give players an absolutely enormous map, then let them guide or place ammo trucks and dropship points, and let them sort out the details. Putting huge fortresses on both sides of the map and being like "here's THREE WAVES1!@!@!#!@#!!! OF MECHS! NOW DESTROI TEH BASS!" Seems like the kind of idea someone would come up with...while drunk.

Edited by Water Bear, 03 March 2018 - 08:17 AM.

[Koniving]

Water Bear, on 03 March 2018 - 08:17 AM, said:

IMO, CW should be a sandbox. Give players an absolutely enormous map, then let them guide or place ammo trucks and dropship points, and let them sort out the details. Putting huge fortresses on both sides of the map and being like "here's THREE WAVES1!@!@!#!@#!!! OF MECHS! NOW DESTROI TEH BASS!" Seems like the kind of idea someone would come up with...while drunk.

(Slight update/correction on my post; the truck/howitzer is 65 tons, not 60, so the overall LT-MOB-25 unit is 95 tons. 65 ton main vehicle with 30 ton cannon, 3x 10 ton trailers. Armaments also include 4 machine guns and a ton of ammo there, too.)

Sadly given the layout of MWO, don't think we'd ever see a sandbox layout. We'd basically get Mechwarrior Living Legends..

Keep an eye out though for the Battletech discussion thread. As I've hinted at in a few places including my hypothetical thread, I'm working on some in-Battletech (the Megamek computer version) campaigns fleshed into short stories (to make them more interesting to read) as a sort of "What if Faction Warfare was what PGI said it would be?" Using most to all of the stuff PGI had actually said in the original CW reveal at the first Mech Con.

[McValium]

Closed due to personal attacks on staff.