131 replies to this topic

[Racerxintegra2k]

When playing Battletech i feel immersed in the lore, and its truly amazing. I now understand what the lore heads in my unit were always complaining about with regards to MWO. MWO has great mech designs but does not even come close to providing the same level lore experience.

[Dogstar]

Yeah MWO makes no attempt to immerse you in the setting, your always aware that you are playing a game, rather than living in the Battletech universe.

The annoyign thing is that it would be easy enough for PGI to make a few text changes towards immersion but they can't even be bothered to do that.

[Racerxintegra2k]

In my opinion whoever is responsible for the direction of MWO, should really spend a week or so playing Battletech and then model faction play around it.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

Racerxintegra2k, on 30 April 2018 - 05:56 AM, said:

When playing Battletech i feel immersed in the lore, and its truly amazing. I now understand what the lore heads in my unit were always complaining about with regards to MWO. MWO has great mech designs but does not even come close to providing the same level lore experience.

I just want to say, I'm really, really happy that Battletech has helped open you up to the lore of the setting.

It's ritch, and deep, and has over 30 years to it, some amazing novels and source material. And you never really get the feel of that here in MWO as you said.

Which is sad, that PGI didn't just, pull information from Sarna... give a lore hub area, anything that could help.

[El Bandito]

MWO is indeed very lacking in terms of lore immersion. Mind you, I am 100% fine with PGI changing lore tonnage and crit values of weapons and equipments for balance reasons--it is a multiplayer arena shooter after all, we need balance first. However, we also need more fluff to remind everyone that this is indeed battletech universe. And Faction Play was suppose to be that reminder, yet it flopped disastrously in regards to that aspect. Shame.

While I am very happy that BT had made us relive the gritty day-to-day survival of mercenary life (MW2: Mercs was the last game that did that right), I am also kinda concerned about the fact that BT went that way, cause MW5 is also suppose to be about mercenaries. As much as I love being a merc in BT universe, I really didn't want both games to be about mercs. I wished one of them was about Great Houses and their units.

Edited by El Bandito, 30 April 2018 - 08:35 AM.

[GBxGhostRyder]

Racerxintegra2k, on 30 April 2018 - 06:15 AM, said:

In my opinion whoever is responsible for the direction of MWO, should really spend a week or so playing Battletech and then model faction play around it.

It would not make one bit of a difference if any of the devs or staff played battletech MWO would not change.

The reason I say this is back at day1-day180 of MWO's existence over 100,000 + MWO players said the same thing to Russ and Brian and you can see what MWO ended up being a shallow repetitive FPS.

That's why on the first mass exodus of players in closed beta it was like 500,000 registered players gone just left the game because of no lore no incentive to stay and be immersed in the battletech universe.


P.S Remember MWO now is a FPS twitch shooter E-SPORT game no one ever wanted except one guy Russ and a few Comp players and this is all MWO will ever be without a total remake of the game.

Edited by GBxGhostRyder, 30 April 2018 - 06:50 AM.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

El Bandito, on 30 April 2018 - 06:18 AM, said:

MWO is indeed very lacking in terms of lore immersion. Mind you, I am 100% fine with PGI changing lore tonnage and crit values of weapons and equipments for balance reasons--it is a multiplayer arena shooter after all, we need balance first. However, we also need more fluff to remind everyone that this is indeed battletech universe. And Faction Play was suppose to be that reminder, yet it flopped disastrously in regards for lore. Shame.

While I am very happy that BT had made us relive the gritty day-to-day survival of mercenary life (MW2: Mercs was the last game that did that right), I am also kinda concerned about the fact that BT went that way, cause MW5 is also suppose to be about mercenaries. As much as I love being a merc in BT universe, I really didn't want both games to be about mercs. I wished one of them was about Great Houses and their units.

Problem is with a great house idea, you're stuck to essentially "what that great house gives you as a mech" or "what you bring to the fight as your ancient aging battlemech to pledge to the great house you fight for."

The thing is, being a merc, gives more freedom to the player from a storytelling perspective. Want to fight for a great house? Do it, you can take a long term contract with them, or even do nothing but just take contracts from them, there you're part of their military. Want to betray them and work for their opponent mid mission chain, do it!

Want to chase the C-bills, go for it.

Want to Chase Rep? You do you man.

You're able, as a player, to do far more in a merc setting, than in a "you are tied to a great house/clan " setting..

So I get what you mean, the great houses have some amazing lore, but it's nothing that can't be worked out through allying with them as a merc either.

[El Bandito]

CMDR Sunset Shimmer, on 30 April 2018 - 06:51 AM, said:

Problem is with a great house idea, you're stuck to essentially "what that great house gives you as a mech" or "what you bring to the fight as your ancient aging battlemech to pledge to the great house you fight for."

The thing is, being a merc, gives more freedom to the player from a storytelling perspective. Want to fight for a great house? Do it, you can take a long term contract with them, or even do nothing but just take contracts from them, there you're part of their military. Want to betray them and work for their opponent mid mission chain, do it!

Want to chase the C-bills, go for it.

Want to Chase Rep? You do you man.

You're able, as a player, to do far more in a merc setting, than in a "you are tied to a great house/clan " setting..

So I get what you mean, the great houses have some amazing lore, but it's nothing that can't be worked out through allying with them as a merc either.

Yeah but playing as Great House can also be fun in its own way, such as deciding where to lead/send your units, capturing planets for your house, making and breaking alliances with other factions, actually influencing the star map, and affecting Inner's Sphere's power balance. Choosing a Great House and playing under Succession Wars setting would be something I would love to do one day.

[GBxGhostRyder]

El Bandito, on 30 April 2018 - 07:01 AM, said:

Yeah but playing as Great House can also be fun in its own way, such as deciding where to lead/send your units, capturing planets for your house, making and breaking alliances with other factions, actually influencing the star map, and affecting Inner's Sphere's power balance. Choosing a Great House and playing under Succession Wars setting would be something I would love to do one day.

Like you I miss the old BTU,NBT and MWL planetary leagues and there depth of lore and play but MWO never had this kind of lore or depth from DAY1 sorry bud but the golden days of this IP are 10 + years ago and MWO in some ways is better than the old MechWarrior/Battletech games and far worse than its PC IP predecessors.

Edited by GBxGhostRyder, 30 April 2018 - 07:07 AM.

[Scyther]

Actually, a few minimal attempts were made in the past, when new mechs were introduced; or an event planned; and even for a while near the start there was sort of a 'news ticker' with posts about what was going on in the Inner Sphere etc.

To the best of my recollection, these were one of the few efforts by PGI that received player approval and generated virtually no salt. It is also relatively easy to do because someone with no programming skill or design experience can basically just cut and paste info from the dozens of BT sources and make a news post out of it.

Apparently 'lore' and 'immersion' can't be sold in packs, or turned into an e-sport, or even spectated upon; and thus was written off by Russ and Paul as unnecessary frills on the core MWO experience of 'all deathmatch, all the time'.

Edit: even in the vastness of EVE Online, pretty much every new Scope News report or lore-related event gets major approval and little salt. Same with City of Heroes back in the day, or Secret World now... it's weird how far a little storytelling can go in drumming up interest among your audience.

Edited by MadBadger, 30 April 2018 - 07:22 AM.

[Peter2k]

Racerxintegra2k, on 30 April 2018 - 05:56 AM, said:

When playing Battletech i feel immersed in the lore, and its truly amazing. I now understand what the lore heads in my unit were always complaining about with regards to MWO. MWO has great mech designs but does not even come close to providing the same level lore experience.

the opportunities missedw

[GBxGhostRyder]

MadBadger, on 30 April 2018 - 07:17 AM, said:

Actually, a few minimal attempts were made in the past, when new mechs were introduced; or an event planned; and even for a while near the start there was sort of a 'news ticker' with posts about what was going on in the Inner Sphere etc.

To the best of my recollection, these were one of the few efforts by PGI that received player approval and generated virtually no salt. It is also relatively easy to do because someone with no programming skill or design experience can basically just cut and paste info from the dozens of BT sources and make a news post out of it.

Apparently 'lore' and 'immersion' can't be sold in packs, or turned into an e-sport, or even spectated upon; and thus was written off by Russ and Paul as unnecessary frills on the core MWO experience of 'all deathmatch, all the time'.

Edit: even in the vastness of EVE Online, pretty much every new Scope News report or lore-related event gets major approval and little salt. Same with City of Heroes back in the day, or Secret World now... it's weird how far a little storytelling can go in drumming up interest among your audience.

Yes I agree a little lore goes a long way in a game but lets look at who is running this game and developed it? Russ and Brian 2 so called players of Mechwarrior4 Mercenaries that played on the MekTek server playing (NHUA) (no-heat-unlimited ammo) builds that all they did was almost 1 shot kill mechs every battle very repetitive game play.

There was no lore in this type of game play it was all rinse and repeat no Social atmosphere nothing and you wonder why MWO basically ended up the same way.

P.S And even back when the old MSN gamming zone went offline and the MekTek servers went up after a few months the servers were almost bare of MechWarrior/Battletech players because no one wanted to play the garbage games of NHUA the same thing has happened to MWO.

Edited by GBxGhostRyder, 30 April 2018 - 07:35 AM.

[Elizander]

There used to be more effort put into this in the past, but I suppose PGI didn't see any value in it in terms of manpower cost and work hours. Maybe because the post views and comments weren't high enough or a common thing where many companies find it difficult to measure what makes a player enjoy their experience outside of data science metrics.

The thing that made me not expect or look for it anymore from PGI is the fact that Faction Play planets were never filled out with details or text. They were all just left blank. The immense delay in creating a very basic knowledge base for the game that players can be referred to and maybe linked and opened up in-game to let new players self-help before contacting support or going to the forums also tells me they might not have a lot of people who have the patience, experience or talent in writing these things up.

Immersion is severely lacking and MWO is more of a game rather than an experience in the world of Battletech, but at least for me it's still a fun game to play. I do know that good stories and events draw players in and keep them coming back, even if they might boat LRMs or can't hit the broad side of a barn. Everyone loves a good story. It's as simple as that. (Also not just anyone can make up a good story).

[Racerxintegra2k]

With this community its a tragic waste to allow faction play to have no lore relevance whatsoever. PGI would generate so much revenue if Faction play had 1/2 the immersion of Battletech. Instead we get bolt ons ... bolt ons :-(

[GBxGhostRyder]

Elizander, on 30 April 2018 - 07:38 AM, said:

There used to be more effort put into this in the past, but I suppose PGI didn't see any value in it in terms of manpower cost and work hours. Maybe because the post views and comments weren't high enough or a common thing where many companies find it difficult to measure what makes a player enjoy their experience outside of data science metrics.

The thing that made me not expect or look for it anymore from PGI is the fact that Faction Play planets were never filled out with details or text. They were all just left blank. The immense delay in creating a very basic knowledge base for the game that players can be referred to and maybe linked and opened up in-game to let new players self-help before contacting support or going to the forums also tells me they might not have a lot of people who have the patience, experience or talent in writing these things up.

Immersion is severely lacking and MWO is more of a game rather than an experience in the world of Battletech, but at least for me it's still a fun game to play. I do know that good stories and events draw players in and keep them coming back, even if they might boat LRMs or can't hit the broad side of a barn. Everyone loves a good story. It's as simple as that. (Also not just anyone can make up a good story).

Unfortunately for this IP's players and fan base Russ and Brian were spoon feed thousands of great ideas for MWO before the games development and afterword's on these forms and were slapped down banned and ridiculed until most left this game thousands of old players from TT-MW2-MW4-Battletech with a lot of game hours played most over 20+ years with this IP series only to see the game devolve into what it is today.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

El Bandito, on 30 April 2018 - 07:01 AM, said:

Yeah but playing as Great House can also be fun in its own way, such as deciding where to lead/send your units, capturing planets for your house, making and breaking alliances with other factions, actually influencing the star map, and affecting Inner's Sphere's power balance. Choosing a Great House and playing under Succession Wars setting would be something I would love to do one day.

This, would be better for a Battletech RTS, than for an "in cockpit" experience IMO.

[FrontGuard]

yeah um.. so Battletech is a thing now?

[Sjorpha]

Mwos lack of storytelling is remarkable, all the empty placeholders for make it even worse (planets with empty descriptions etc.)

I have no understanding for the people trying to use lore to argue for imbalance though, arguments like "clans should be superior", "lights should have no chance against assaults", "machine guns shouldn't work against mechs" and so on are just stupid and really has nothing to do with lore or immersion.

[Elizander]

FrontGuard, on 30 April 2018 - 07:50 AM, said:

yeah um.. so Battletech is a thing now?

It's hell boring to watch in a stream though unless the streamer has mad entertainment/interaction skills.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

GBxGhostRyder, on 30 April 2018 - 07:29 AM, said:

Yes I agree a little lore goes a long way in a game but lets look at who is running this game and developed it? Russ and Brian 2 so called players of Mechwarrior4 Mercenaries that played on the MekTek server playing (NHUA) (no-heat-unlimited ammo) builds that all they did was almost 1 shot kill mechs every battle very repetitive game play.

There was no lore in this type of game play it was all rinse and repeat no Social atmosphere nothing and you wonder why MWO basically ended up the same way.

P.S And even back when the old MSN gamming zone went offline and the MekTek servers went up after a few months the servers were almost bare of MechWarrior/Battletech players because no one wanted to play the garbage games of NHUA the same thing has happened to MWO.

to be fair, there where HOLA [heat on, limited ammo] games running almost constantly during the MekTek days... but the NHUA vs HOLA debate continued on for YEARS after... it didn't matter, because it was two schools of thought, people who wanted fast paced mecha action, and people who wanted battletech.


Clearly, Fast Paced, is what MWO became, to the detriment of a good number of us in the community.

I really wish someone would really pick up a player run league around this game, I remember stuff in Mech4 mercs mektek, where people had these long running campaigns that tracked ammo, equipment, the works...

Yet here we are, with this, frankly, failed attempt at it with CW here... and why? because nothing mattered, no real incentives were given, no serious reprocussions were part of the game, it was just multi-respawn drops... no cost to the players, no real solid rewards... when your "main" mode, pays players LESS than the quickplay option, it's no wonder the community sticks to QP and FP goes nowhere...

It's just frustrating, I remember being hopeful, I remember being bright eyed, and hoping beyond hope that this game, would be amazing... the groundwork was already laid for them,all they had to do was copy that groundwork, then make a pretty game ontop of it...

and they couldn't even do that... [at least we got the pretty part...kinda.]