66 replies to this topic

[Spheroid]

Have you noticed that despite continuous monthly mech pack releases going back to the Marauder the number of "nobodies" remains constant over the course of years? If anything I would expect the display of badges to increase over time. Sadly it has not.

This means either one of two things, both of which are bad.

• MWO has high turnover
  
• MWO has a high rate of unpaying players which is either holding steady or increasing over time.

Given the obvious superior value of the modern era mechpacks, it is not realistic to feel that money given the developers took another form say in MC which is a terrible value in general. Also Steam is no longer a purchase competitor.


In addition we are coming off the highest value per mech deal yet released in this game's history in the form of the Solaris 7 pack. If new players are strapped for c-bills and mechs why are these Solaris badges not displayed more prominently? If you paid $30 you might as well display it to distinguish yourself from a true F2P potato. What is the model for players sliding into the pay category from non-paying? If such a tendency is not present at initiation why would one expect to develop over time?

Whales in the past were founders like myself who continued to make purchases over the years. I am close to being satisatied however. The last money purchase I made was the Piranha as it was the only thing that was unique for quite some time. The Civil War packages contained a large number of lemons and I skipped it completely. Both the Hellfire and Vulcan do nothing to advance power creep and as such I predict their sales to be poor. It is entirely possible we have already reached peak meta. Where does future cash flow come from?


This rant is divided into two parts. The financial analysis and the psychology portion.

Why no badges, faction affilation or unit lised in the player column?

Lack of faction icons I can forgive as it was reset last patch. However why do so many not have unit tags? Not that long we had a FP event with decent swag. The most logical course of action would have been to form a one man unit and sign a merc contract for maximum profit. Why on Earth would you delete this ad hoc name without cause? Does this mean that a completey new crop of nobodies sprouted in the time since that event? Again this is a terrifying level of turnover.

Also look at the above picture. Why is the pilot of the PIR-1S unadorned? He paid good money but visually looks no different from a noob. Icons adjacent to one's name are functionally no different than paint or camo as it serves to differentiate yourself from others and most humans like to peacock and flaunt to satisfy their vanity. Player names and units can also be reflections of identity or puns. Is the lack of these identifiers in so many an indication of casualness or lack of passion?

If anything one should try to enhance one's player identity as a defense mechanism against player harassment be it justified or not. Basic green is in no way a social advantage in this game nor is operating with blank, blank, blank, pilot name.

Edited by Spheroid, 08 May 2018 - 01:14 PM.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Or, and bear with me here, people don't bother to pick a badge for display.

[JediPanther]

I expect the recent launch of solaris and battle tech has done much to draw off the better/more experienced players from the game even if just temporarily. I've also seen many many people in qp act like day one new players or say in chat they recently started so new players are playing which is a good thing.

Hopefully all the 'news' will like the game and stay. As for money I doubt pgi is lacking. They're still in the hg court case,getting royalties from art assets used in battle tech, working on mw5 and Mechcon this year still seems to be going to happen. The mwowc supporter pack went on sale around june-july last year.

Even I go 'green' by using the stock default green on mechs despite having a few colors,hero skins, and a few badges. Most the time I rock the Founders badge because I might as well. It's good when you can help the 'news' and they are more inclined to listen to 'the vet' since he has the Founder's badge. I'm one that's been playing quite regularly since closed beta days.

[Mole]

I know for a long, long time I didn't even realize there WERE badges. I didn't realize it until I purchased my first 'mechpack with real money, which I will shamelessly admit was the Urbanmech. Point being, I was a veteran player before I bothered picking a badge. Just because someone doesn't have a badge doesn't mean they are a "nobody" or even that they are new.

Edited by Mole, 08 May 2018 - 01:17 PM.

[Spheroid]

@Jedi: That court case is a use of funds not a source of funds. Unless you know different. Damages would not be paid until resolution in any case.

Edited by Spheroid, 08 May 2018 - 01:20 PM.

[Bud Crue]

Spheroid, on 08 May 2018 - 12:57 PM, said:

Why no badges, faction affilation or unit lised in the player column?

Well, for one thing a lot of folk no longer play CW and so faction affiliation and even unit affiliation is irrelevant to a lot of the playing population. As far as a lack of badges, I know a lot of folks who don't bother with them because 1) they don't mean anything in a game where a badge simply denotes a purchase and 2) even for those who might bother to display them know fully well that the only time they are noticed is in the load screen or when you forum warrior, and most folks don't care about the former and don't bother with the latter.

I get what you are saying and trying to implicate here, but I think you are looking more at indifference rather than some sort of indication of impending doom. Maybe they are one and the same, but I don't think so. The lack of identifiers is an indication of perhaps 1 mode's dire straights but not necessarily the overall game.

[Asym]

I seriously doubt MWO will collapse; even if S& is a fail and MW5 is a fail (which they aren't...)

I only drop in QP for events and so far, most matches I've been in had a lot of team player involvement.... Maybe, it was the tome zone or server you play on? Alternative accounts comes into play as well....

Numbers are OK and PGI must be at least breaking even cause S7 happened and MW5 appears to be happening.... What that means for MWO itself??? Who knows.

[oneproduct]

I intentionally don't pick a badge. And in particular, I choose not to pick a title because I find it annoying to see everyone's titles just adding clutter to the information when you press the button to show everyone's callsigns and mech designation on the HUD.

[Mole]

Spheroid, on 08 May 2018 - 01:17 PM, said:

@Jedi: That court case is a use of funds not a source of funds. Unless you know different. Damages would not be resolved until resolution in any case.

You completely missed Jedi's point. His point was, PGI would have settled with HG long ago instead of continuing to fight a court battle if they felt like they did not have the funds to keep fighting. I've litigated someone before and I forced a settlement out of the person I was litigating even though they probably would have won the court case simply because they did not have the money to defend themselves in civil court.

[Spheroid]

Why are people not proud of badges?



I wear this because I believed in the cause in 2012 and gave money toward that end. Is badge prestige no longer a thing? Badge age and level of spending serve to inform who you are and what equipment you most likely have.

Edited by Spheroid, 08 May 2018 - 01:26 PM.

[Ken Harkin]

Doom, Doom, DOOM!!!

We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

[Nameless King]

Spheroid, on 08 May 2018 - 01:26 PM, said:

Why are people not proud of badges?



I wear this because I believed in the cause in 2012 and gave money toward that end. Is badge prestige no longer a thing? Badge age and level of spending serve to inform who you are and what equipment you most likely have.

When was Badge Prestige a thing? I dont care if others know how much I spend or not or how long I been in the game.

[Exilyth]

Consider this: buying packs on steam or mechs via MC doesn't provide badges, so some people just don't have any even though they support the game.

edit:
If the solaris pack gave people a badge, you'd probably see a lot more.

Edited by Exilyth, 08 May 2018 - 01:45 PM.

[Pain G0D]

Form your own one man unit ? This is bad comedy .

This is a free to play game , the majority of players won't buy a mech pack .

[Spheroid]

@Pain: If people don't pay who pays for the three regional servers? Current whales will retire or stop buying. Are you certain that enough free loaders will evolve into new whales to meet these ongoing costs?

Badges serve as proof of spending and the lack of these badges leads to believe there will be fewer whales in the future as there are currently.

Edited by Spheroid, 08 May 2018 - 02:02 PM.

[mistlynx4life]

It's like different people value different parts/features of this game and enjoy it in different ways or something...

[Duncan Aravain]

EVE is dying....oops, force of habit. I meant ...... MWO is dying!

Most of the people I know that play MWO have been enjoying the new HBS BT the last few weeks; we'll return,soon...probably.

[Tarl Cabot]

First, remember FP was reset last month and there has been no Faction Event, so those who only hit FP for events have had no reason to select a Faction, be it as a merc or loyalist. As for badges, a number of players are unable of them or do not care.

[ZippySpeedMonkey]

I just don’t care about them, and believe me I’ve been here long enough to have a lot of them.

[GrimRiver]

Maybe people would rather buy mechs individually instead of spending $30 - $60 on a mechpack?

There also needs to be badges for achieving something ingame like titles.