41 replies to this topic

[IIXxXII]

I don't play a lot of games. Is it like this everywhere?

Is it a generation gap / age demographic difference?

I've never seen anyone be so fanatical about thrusting their views in other peoples faces, so consistently over a prolonged period of time.

[Zibmo]

I'm not backseat either one.

Most people blame devs for gameplay issues and directional decisions. Those are usually made at a much higher level - either by the lead design team or management. My philosophy after having been developer, dba, CTO and CEO, is that every single issue that a company ever experiences is the direct result of management. So, yes, I blame myself.

Sometimes those decisions are unpleasant compromises.

Also, it's much easier to criticize people doing jobs you've never done.

[Haipyng]

This goes back a long, long ways with ideas that had been presented to backers and the small and almost rabid following of Fans that MechWarrior has accumulated since TableTop days. To say, "it's complicated" is an understatement.

[MechaBattler]

Well it's hard to say that PGI hasn't made some questionable decisions. And the game clearly suffers from either poor optimization or an engine that has been reworked so much that it's a little janky. Even on the very best computers some maps just have hang ups.

But I think arm chair devs is a thing in any game community. People will always second guess the developers. That's why I'm happy they're embracing modding for MW5. If people are such good arm chair devs, they can prove it with their own mod.

Edited by MechaBattler, 21 May 2018 - 12:09 PM.

[Bud Crue]

IIXxXII, on 21 May 2018 - 11:59 AM, said:

I don't play a lot of games. Is it like this everywhere?

Is it a generation gap / age demographic difference?

I've never seen anyone be so fanatical about thrusting their views in other peoples faces, so consistently over a prolonged period of time.

Is it like what everywhere?

This is a game forum, put forth by the devs specifically to discuss their game and things related to it.

People don’t do that on other forums? They don’t make suggestions on how to improve a game, product, or whatever on other forums? They don’t critique and criticize and discuss? If not, what do they do then, just repeat “thanks dev’s this is perfect” over and over and over? That seems kinda pointless in a forum.

Is it not the very nature of a public forum to “thrust” one’s views into “other people’s faces” in order to discuss various topics “over a prolonged period of time”? Have we all been using the forum incorrectly for all these years? Damn. I wish someone would have mentioned this sooner. Now I am just embarrassed. Who knew we were just supposed to sit quietly and ponder the various aspects of the game in our heads in this here forum?

Edited by Bud Crue, 21 May 2018 - 12:14 PM.

[Mcgral18]

IIXxXII, on 21 May 2018 - 11:59 AM, said:

I've never seen anyone be so fanatical about thrusting their views in other peoples faces, so consistently over a prolonged period of time.

Minimally Viable Products have that effect on people


"But if you just but more effort into it, look at what you could have had!"
And then you get sad

[Leone]

Because it's alot easier than actually doing the work.

~Leone.

[Eisenhorne]

Because I am always right and nobody else is.

[IIXxXII]

My impression is: star citizen sux.

Star citizen devs dont receive 15% of the heat devs from this game get despite creating an infinitely more craporific product.

Its almost like a quantum rift opened creating a wormhole which channeled all of the negativity star citizen devs were supposed to receive, redirecting it towards devs of this game, instead.

You have to admit something strange is going on here.

[Exilyth]

Fact is: there are games which are better (e.g. previous mechwarrior and mech commander titles)
Fact is: there are games which are worse (e.g. anything on steam with a 'thumb down' rating)
Fact is: MW:O is having more dubious design choices that many other games


Whether that is due to improper understanding and too literal translation (or lack of translation) of TT rules, executive meddling, bad game design, bad coding, suboptimal engine choice or some drunk guy stuck on twitter is hard to tell from the outside. It's probably a mix of all of that.

On how to translate the TT rules to a real time mech simulation, there have been millions of topics on this forums since beta, so I won't go into that.

The engine choice could be changed with a large effort. From what I heard about the internals of MW:O, cryengine is a real mess and the development of MW5 on UE goes much smoother. The question then would be whether to port MW:O to UE or to rewrite MW:O on UE.

The coding can be improved upon by reading related literature and sites, like e.g. https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/, following software engineering wisdom like http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/ (web version is free) and planning all larger changes before implementing them.

The game design can be improved via similar means, e.g. literature and sites, but also by playing the old Mechwarrior titles to learn what made them so great for people.

Unfortunably, stopping executive meddling is a bit harder as it requires the whole team to veto any meddling. Ideally, data would be collected on what players want from the game (e.g. "big stompy mech action that's as true to BT lore as possible") so executives could check if their 'vision' of the game (e.g. "making money with dumbed down e-sports") lines up with what the players want. As my old teach used to say: "If you're having visions, better go see a doctor.".

And for the drunk guy on twitter there's help organisations like the ones listed on the following government page: https://www.canada.c...drug-abuse.html
I could provide links for social media addiction help too, but it is better to cure addictions one at a time.


Of course, I'm only scratching the surface of each topic. Would you like to know more?

Edited by Exilyth, 21 May 2018 - 12:53 PM.

[TWIAFU]

IIXxXII, on 21 May 2018 - 11:59 AM, said:

Is it like this everywhere?

Yes.

There is safety to critique someone else's work while in the safety of an armchair without the actual experience to know what your talking about.

But there is also a difference between armchair coding and feedback.

I have had the great joy to be chosen to participate in private DEV servers for quite a few MMO's. It has been the greatest and most eye opening experience I have had. You learn a lot when you can have personal, one on one conversations with the actual DEVs where you can ask questions and get answers. You learn how things work. You learn respect for what they do. You find out they are just like you and your friends that you are playing that game with.

The biggest problem with so many people and so many views is that it all turns to noise for them, the DEVs, and it becomes unusable.

[Thorn Hallis]

One doesn't need to be a cook to know that the soup is salty. ^.^

[Khobai]

this game has a fairly unique community. its mostly older players who are passionate/nostalgic for mechwarrior, battletech, and big stompy robots in general.

I doubt millenials would have the attention span or patience to put up with PGI's incompetence and incessant bumbling. They just move on to other games like fortnite or PUBG or whatever the kids play these days for their instant gratification.

but PGI has definitely given us reason to be skeptical and cynical about the future of this game...

the fact theyre still trying to force stricter ghost heat on us for example. sure we get that the game needs ghost heat as a result of its other design failures like convergence. but we DONT want more ghost heat than we already have. we want better, simpler, less invasive solutions instead like just lowering the damage on CERML/CHLL.

and lets not forget the whole engine desync/new skill tree fiasco that made half the mechs in the game completely unfun to play...

PGI keeps making one bad decision after another in perpetuity, forever, etc... honestly im surprised the forums arnt much worse than they are considering...

Edited by Khobai, 21 May 2018 - 01:15 PM.

[Eisenhorne]

Khobai, on 21 May 2018 - 01:04 PM, said:

I doubt millenials would have the attention span or patience to put up with PGI's incompetence and incessant bumbling. They just move on to other games like fortnite or PUBG or whatever the kids play these days for their instant gratification.

I'm a millennial by most definitions, and many of my teammates are a bit younger than me (I'm on the old side of millennial, 30). Lots of us love this game man, and just put up with PGI's BS because the core game loop is a lot of fun.

[Spheroid]

Its not an age thing. Most people who enjoy or financially support this IP are middle aged men.

You claim you don't play many games. That is not an indicator of youth. You are either part of that same demographic or you are on the north side of that age split, i.e. a senior citizen. Is there any truth to my theory?

[Bud Crue]

IIXxXII, on 21 May 2018 - 12:47 PM, said:

You have to admit something strange is going on here.

Oh sure. This game, its devs, their customers and critics have an odd relationship to be certain.

On the one hand we all (dev’s included) have put way, way, way too much emotional effort into a friggin game. I mean seriously, who cares, right? It’s just a game.

On the other hand even Russ and co. over the years have expressed thier nerd/fanboy love of this franchise and its underlying IP to a degree that they created the game in the first place, with presumably a significant amount of financial risk. Many of the players of this game were along for the ride in that process and followed along for the last 6 years or even longer. Some helped found the game. Other’s didn’t, but instead just spent obscene amounts of money on it to help keep it alive. Other’s just like the IP and play. But in any case, a lot of folks feel a very personal link to this enterprise for a variety of different reasons and motivations. And because they actually want the game to be what they think it could be, they talk, they discuss, they thrust their views out there for like minded people (or not) to consider. Even Russ in his MW5 “interviews” has made implications that this game is not all what he wanted it to be, and like him we want it to be so much more, but unlike him we do not have an exlusive license with Microsoft to allow us to change things on our whim; but alas he does and a lot of times he and his do things some of us don’t like.

And so, while it is indeed his/PGI’s game, it is our childhood, our collective love of this IP, our hopes and dreams of a F2P Mechwarrior based game that we want so much to be what it could be and what PGI once promised it would be. That is the “weird” thing that is going on here: way more emotional investment in a game than is perhaps healthy, but there it is.

Edited by Bud Crue, 21 May 2018 - 01:13 PM.

[Ensaine]

IIXxXII, on 21 May 2018 - 12:47 PM, said:

My impression is: star citizen sux.

Star citizen devs dont receive 15% of the heat devs from this game get despite creating an infinitely more craporific product.

Its almost like a quantum rift opened creating a wormhole which channeled all of the negativity star citizen devs were supposed to receive, redirecting it towards devs of this game, instead.

You have to admit something strange is going on here.

Hey... New Guy...

Have a read here... then come with any questions......

https://www.tiki-tok...-10-23_13:32:00!

[yrrot]

I think with MWO, you see a lot of people that wanted MW5: Online, not what MWO ended up being. Those folks stick around because "big stompy robots are fun" and some of the concepts of how MWO is built are great, from a core mech control standpoint. But they still want what they had in their heads that this game would be, ever since that first spiffy teaser/tech demo.

Thought of the day: Millennial doesn't mean what people thinks it means. They are 18-30's. Bunch of us on the upper end of that grew up playing MW...

[DrxAbstract]

Mcgral18, on 21 May 2018 - 12:19 PM, said:

Minimally Viable Products have that effect on people


"But if you just but more effort into it, look at what you could have had!"
And then you get sad

Are we really going with MWO needing more effort as the reason for its mediocrity? I feel like direction has been PGI's fatal flaw from the get-go... as in they've spent exorbitant amounts of effort going in the wrong one... Repeatedly.

[jss78]

People are just passionate about the game.

It's an old franchise and lots of people are in fact really sophisticated about all things BT/MW. Maybe naïve about the constraints that come with actually being the developing company. but still really, really knowledgable.

As a paying customer I feel it's perfectly OK to voice your opinion.

I imagine PGI would be the first to admit there're some really good ideas to be found on the forums. (And maybe useful elements to otherwise not good ideas.)