140 replies to this topic

[Anjian]

I would say that your budgetary resources are going to be limited, even if MW5 is successful. You are an indie, you don't have a publisher behind you, you need capital and there is also the question how much banks would lend you and how many investors are willing to give you capital.

To rebuild MWO into Unreal you have to start at the very basics. You will likely have to sacrifice Solaris 7 and Faction Play. You will transfer the main parts of the game, dealing with purchasing, creation, configuration, and management of the mechs and hangers. Then QP with say, only four to five maps first. I will take the chance here to strip out map and game mode voting. Forget the quirks and the 91 point skill tree. The game that should be easier to port is the way the game is at 2014. Like stripped down and back the basics. You can't port every mech, you also have to start from a number of iconic ones.

Once you get the groundwork done, that's when you begin to move up, restore FP, port more of the maps and the mechs and work from there.

It is essential you have to be simple at first. Its easier to work out the bugs on a simpler foundation, and once the foundation is solid and tested, you work up from there.

The game will feel like a back in 2013-14, like a beta, because that's what it is. I would take the chance here to overhaul the game in terms of UI and ergonomics, make the game simpler, more accessible and engaging. This is the chance to get rid of excess baggage.

The maps I would like to port first:

Tourmaline
Crimson
HPG
River Valley (original)
Canyon

I would actually prefer the original versions of maps like River Valley and Frost City . As the newer maps are too cluttered, too many unused space, and prone to nascars. The simplicity of these maps makes them easier to port.

First mechs to port;

IS:

Atlas
Centurion
Jenner
Hunchback
Griffin
Thunderbolt
Wolverine
Shadowhawk
Raven
Locust
Awesome
Cataphract
Catapult
Battlemaster
Marauder
Blackjack
Trebuchet
Quickdraw
Dragon

Clan
Timberwolf
Mad Dog
Hellbringer
Shadowcat
Adder
Cougar
Direwolf
Warhawk
Summoner
Nova
Ryoken
Hunchback IIC
Ebon Jaguar


For game modes, just do Skirmish, Conquest, Domination and Assault.


I would run both MWO1 and MWO2 simultaneously. MWO2 would be to start, a single test server in Canada or the US. MWO1 would keep running until there are not enough players anymore.

As for a business model, I would carry the accounts over but beware, it would take some time, much time even, before all the mechs are going to be ported over. So old players will not see their mech collection recreated immediately, and in effect, it will be like an IOU.

My main business model would be to get new players in and paying so for them, and as mechs are being ported and re-introduced they will be cash and MC only for a while. A number of base mechs --- namely the iconic ones and the first mechs to be ported --- that will be available in game credits. Every few months I would reexamine which mechs are going to be silvers, which will stay gold, and also do this with particular variants, so some variants will be silvers, and some will only be gold. I would also host events when gold mechs can be acquired as a prize, as well as event only prized mechs.

Edited by Anjian, 18 October 2018 - 07:59 PM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

XD thats is PGI ...the Company thats not one good game produced in 17 Years and only MWO is a Little sucess..thats have not the Experience and Manpower for MWO , thats faults by FP, S7 .thats have nothing Quality Managment or Marketing ...many talented Guys and a untalented Leading Dev Team..im not see a real sucessfull MW5 and a Future for PGI ...This Company has Basic problems with the Cryenegine ,who other Companys make good Work ,and now this PGI will make a UE4 Game ? the engine make not alone a Game

[dante245]

Anjian, on 18 October 2018 - 03:53 AM, said:

More than they update the game, they know how to celebrate the game, make every player feel they are proud of playing the game and part of its community,

They have a special game mode event for Halloween.

there nothing wrong in saying that "we have allot to learn" and copying others successes. just take what worked for wot "marketing strategy, in game content, improvements" and make it apart of MWO. willl make them money hand over fist in the long run.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

dante245, on 18 October 2018 - 11:24 PM, said:

there nothing wrong in saying that "we have allot to learn" and copying others successes. just take what worked for wot "marketing strategy, in game content, improvements" and make it apart of MWO. willl make them money hand over fist in the long run.

WoT with his P2W model not the Top of Game solutions ...it give better Game models like War Thunder ...FP Models like the faction wars in Star Conflict or battlestar galactica Online (without thats horrible P2W model in it)..Problem the leading Devs have nothing interest to hers own product ..its only a product in a long line of of PGI products

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 18 October 2018 - 11:33 PM.

[Jackal Noble]

Anjian, on 18 October 2018 - 07:43 PM, said:

I would say that your budgetary resources are going to be limited, even if MW5 is successful. You are an indie, you don't have a publisher behind you, you need capital and there is also the question how much banks would lend you and how many investors are willing to give you capital.

To rebuild MWO into Unreal you have to start at the very basics. You will likely have to sacrifice Solaris 7 and Faction Play. You will transfer the main parts of the game, dealing with purchasing, creation, configuration, and management of the mechs and hangers. Then QP with say, only four to five maps first. I will take the chance here to strip out map and game mode voting. Forget the quirks and the 91 point skill tree. The game that should be easier to port is the way the game is at 2014. Like stripped down and back the basics. You can't port every mech, you also have to start from a number of iconic ones.

Once you get the groundwork done, that's when you begin to move up, restore FP, port more of the maps and the mechs and work from there.

It is essential you have to be simple at first. Its easier to work out the bugs on a simpler foundation, and once the foundation is solid and tested, you work up from there.

The game will feel like a back in 2013-14, like a beta, because that's what it is. I would take the chance here to overhaul the game in terms of UI and ergonomics, make the game simpler, more accessible and engaging. This is the chance to get rid of excess baggage.

The maps I would like to port first:

Tourmaline
Crimson
HPG
River Valley (original)
Canyon

I would actually prefer the original versions of maps like River Valley and Frost City . As the newer maps are too cluttered, too many unused space, and prone to nascars. The simplicity of these maps makes them easier to port.

First mechs to port;

IS:

Atlas
Centurion
Jenner
Hunchback
Griffin
Thunderbolt
Wolverine
Shadowhawk
Raven
Locust
Awesome
Cataphract
Catapult
Battlemaster
Marauder
Blackjack
Trebuchet
Quickdraw
Dragon

Clan
Timberwolf
Mad Dog
Hellbringer
Shadowcat
Adder
Cougar
Direwolf
Warhawk
Summoner
Nova
Ryoken
Hunchback IIC
Ebon Jaguar


For game modes, just do Skirmish, Conquest, Domination and Assault.


I would run both MWO1 and MWO2 simultaneously. MWO2 would be to start, a single test server in Canada or the US. MWO1 would keep running until there are not enough players anymore.

As for a business model, I would carry the accounts over but beware, it would take some time, much time even, before all the mechs are going to be ported over. So old players will not see their mech collection recreated immediately, and in effect, it will be like an IOU.

My main business model would be to get new players in and paying so for them, and as mechs are being ported and re-introduced they will be cash and MC only for a while. A number of base mechs --- namely the iconic ones and the first mechs to be ported --- that will be available in game credits. Every few months I would reexamine which mechs are going to be silvers, which will stay gold, and also do this with particular variants, so some variants will be silvers, and some will only be gold. I would also host events when gold mechs can be acquired as a prize, as well as event only prized mechs.

You do realize there’s this thing called the UDK? The unreal development kit. Your game model idea is ambitious but very limited in scope and breadth, primarily because you are making excuses for your future hypothetical game based off of how poorly this current iteration has been managed. It doesn’t have to be that way. Even if PGI decides to reinvent the game in Unreal, the limitations imposed by the Cryengine will be gone. Asset handling by and large is far better, less prone to anomalous error.
But to base your very own hypothetical, and basically mimic what we already have in place with the current game, which no one really wants but it’s all we’ve got.
Porting limitations? What? The models are already done. Just like with the current game the 3D models and rigs are not made in Cry engine, they are imported.
With far more utility and efficiency on resource allocation, existing maps should all be made less sucky and double in size. Further each map needs at least 4 variations where the actual map is different. No not just day cycl and call it good, like the actual colors of the map assets change. Back to the big map idea - you play one 1/4 of a greater map that is for all intents and purposes restricted depending on the mode. So it’s effectively 4 maps in one. That would open up all sort of variation, as well as allow for more dynamic game play.
This is way more than I planned, as originally I was just going to respond with no, but then changed my mind.

Don’t sell yourself short. We deserve better, not more of the exact same.

Edited by Jackal Noble, 19 October 2018 - 12:18 AM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

The main problem is the same as in my company ... we have managers who have ideas but due to lack of existing knowledge and experience can not assess the feasibility of having know-how but providing people who can sell themselves well, completely independent of real knowledge.
So, unrealistic timelines are set up and demands and ideas that then expel those people with knowledge and experience have experience and know because they do not want to be limited by incompetence and want to be driven into wrong unrealistic ways ... so have we do not really know anything, but do not want to be exposed to ignorance by people who know and have experience .
We call ourselves high tech company, but in some cases we still work with them windows 3.1 because the good programmers have leaved and no one knows, nothing has the know How to ported the work programs , and the respective production manager hopes that the computers will not die before he is no longer in the Company Hirarchie and no longer responsible, and you put the customer off and tell you fairy tales that the next product is all better...
we bring the Next half dead Horse to market and hopes the customer ride it.

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 19 October 2018 - 12:30 AM.

[Bluttrunken]

i wouldn't hesitate a second to support it financially. I'd expect to take my mechs to the next game, of course, which seems to be the most common denominator here. UE4 would introduce alot of graphical bells and whistles and is all and all a much more robust game engine than Cry, with an ongoing, great support from Epic.

[Anjian]

Jackal Noble, on 19 October 2018 - 12:12 AM, said:

You do realize there’s this thing called the UDK? The unreal development kit. Your game model idea is ambitious but very limited in scope and breadth, primarily because you are making excuses for your future hypothetical game based off of how poorly this current iteration has been managed. It doesn’t have to be that way. Even if PGI decides to reinvent the game in Unreal, the limitations imposed by the Cryengine will be gone. Asset handling by and large is far better, less prone to anomalous error.
But to base your very own hypothetical, and basically mimic what we already have in place with the current game, which no one really wants but it’s all we’ve got.
Porting limitations? What? The models are already done. Just like with the current game the 3D models and rigs are not made in Cry engine, they are imported.
With far more utility and efficiency on resource allocation, existing maps should all be made less sucky and double in size. Further each map needs at least 4 variations where the actual map is different. No not just day cycl and call it good, like the actual colors of the map assets change. Back to the big map idea - you play one 1/4 of a greater map that is for all intents and purposes restricted depending on the mode. So it’s effectively 4 maps in one. That would open up all sort of variation, as well as allow for more dynamic game play.
This is way more than I planned, as originally I was just going to respond with no, but then changed my mind.

Don’t sell yourself short. We deserve better, not more of the exact same.

Wrong. You do deserve better but things have to be taken step by step.

I never implied that you cannot have a more developed feature laden game in the future, but in the short term, you need to have a working, debugged, optimized, and reliable port first, and its better to approach the port as conservatively as possible. Given your limited budgetary and development resources you should not aim for the sky, but what you can achieve realistically within your limited means.

The primary goal first is to have a working, debugged and reliable port. Above everything. Then optimize that.
and solidify, "battle harden" it with testing and live play. Once you have a stable foundation, and I will emphasize FOUNDATION, then you begin to build and expand on that. That deserves another topic.

Your mapping idea also won't work. A bigger map will only mean more places that it won't be used. Bigger does not mean automatically better. Believe it or not, players want to find the other players faster, engage sooner, spend more time on engagement (fighting), and have a fulfilling time within a limited time frame. You also want maps that can cater to different play styler.les, whether you are a runner, sniper or brawler. That requires careful design, instead of throwing things into a map just to make a map look good. This is where you need to hire someone who truly understands level design, then spare the resources where players can test the map and work on feedback. Its better to have a game with a few good maps than a lot of bad maps.

Designing a map for better game play means you take a map, statistically map all the pathways the players go through, and also work on the W/L statistics from each spawn. I would say for Wargaming's credit, they constantly tweak their maps based on usage and play analytics, and I have also seen War Thunder does that too. PGI has done this but has been far too slow on doing this, as well as doing things on maps that didn't have a problem.

And of course there is a UDK. Does not mean you need to go all out at first. Every development you need to take it first step by step, mastering and solidifying the core first before you start to add features. Realistic and conservative goals are also more attainable through limited time frames, and achieving deadlines in the schedule of your roadmap. In any software development, bugs and bugs and bugs are your biggest enemy.

Edited by Anjian, 19 October 2018 - 02:32 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

Jackal Noble, on 19 October 2018 - 12:12 AM, said:

You do realize there’s this thing called the UDK?

wasn't there a CryEngine SDK and PGI did not use it?

[Rhialto]

As long as I can play in 3D I'll be happy...

[Jackal Noble]

Anjian, on 19 October 2018 - 02:13 AM, said:

Wrong.

I’m not wrong, just like you are not wrong. We are dealing in opinion based hypotheticals. Might as well be dealing in powderpuffs and pipe dreams.
That last bit about the maps. What I was implying was for greater variability in gameplay. Example; make grim plexus 4 times larger, then divide into 4 sub maps. Perhaps the only time the whole map could be used in a faction type mode. Otherwise the map sizes I was implying would still be roughly the same current size.
Seriously, face the music. If you play this game even half way regularly, or for instance every day, the maps in this game are very very worn in. To the point that map you usually know the exact pattern that your team is going to follow, as well as what the enemy team is going to do 9 times out of 10. That’s not good, and bad for player retention. Why would you keep playing if you keep witnessing the same thing over and over and over. You wouldn’t unless you were insane lol.

[Peter2k]

Anjian, on 18 October 2018 - 07:43 PM, said:

snip

Part of the equation is if you are a small studio, do you want to support 2 games with completely different engines?

Jackal Noble, on 19 October 2018 - 09:21 AM, said:

We are dealing in opinion based hypotheticals. Might as well be dealing in powderpuffs and pipe dreams.

All aboard the star citizen train


Well at least MWO taught me not to "invest" into other uber games with lots of promises just because I have a fondness for its genre.

Rhialto, on 19 October 2018 - 08:31 AM, said:

As long as I can play in 3D I'll be happy...

Yeah, but look at your signature.

To me it feels like they left MWO behind already.
Anything more than messing with some values seems to be so major that its a year in the making, or not coming at all

Anjian, on 19 October 2018 - 02:13 AM, said:

Does not mean you need to go all out at first. Every development you need to take it first step by step, mastering and solidifying the core first before you start to add features. Realistic and conservative goals are also more attainable through limited time frames, and achieving deadlines in the schedule of your roadmap. In any software development, bugs and bugs and bugs are your biggest enemy.

Our hope comes basically down to:
They would already have a functioning Mech game with Mechlab.
Ripping out the restrictions of the mech lab, adding more mechs and doing some maps and letting us play team deathmatch on them cant be that much harder then the work they already are doing anyway.

Bluttrunken, on 19 October 2018 - 12:33 AM, said:

i wouldn't hesitate a second to support it financially. I'd expect to take my mechs to the next game, of course, which seems to be the most common denominator here. UE4 would introduce alot of graphical bells and whistles and is all and all a much more robust game engine than Cry, with an ongoing, great support from Epic.

*whispers* and AI, Tanks, VTOL, all to fill up FP or make more fun modes, maybe.

Cuz they obviously already have those in MW5 already

Edited by Peter2k, 19 October 2018 - 11:38 AM.

[R5D4]

I would support a new version of MWO on the Unreal engine if most of the biggest design flaws were addressed (PSR for instance) AND I was able to bring across my existing MWO account with all purchased items/mechs/etc included. I would even pay to bring the account across so long as the cost is sub $40.00.

IMO MechWarrior Online cannot continue to operate on the existing cry engine for much longer given it's age, lack of support, poor performance, and just how restrictive it's become to the developers ability to implement improved game mechanics. So I'd rather see a new version (with lessons learned) than see it shut down altogether.

[Anjian]

Jackal Noble, on 19 October 2018 - 09:21 AM, said:

I’m not wrong, just like you are not wrong. We are dealing in opinion based hypotheticals. Might as well be dealing in powderpuffs and pipe dreams.

If you studied why some games don't go far, such as like this game, its because they never solidified their basics. Game that is fundamentally buggy, disconnects, poorly graphically optimized from the start, once the game starts feature building, it does not go back to the fundamentals because all efforts are focused on content and feature building. The result is that the poor foundation is passed on and inherited from one version to another for years.

If our core game can pass a high goal for QC, and achieve it in the least time as possible, we can begin content and feature building as soon as possible.

Quote

That last bit about the maps. What I was implying was for greater variability in gameplay. Example; make grim plexus 4 times larger, then divide into 4 sub maps. Perhaps the only time the whole map could be used in a faction type mode. Otherwise the map sizes I was implying would still be roughly the same current size.
Seriously, face the music. If you play this game even half way regularly, or for instance every day, the maps in this game are very very worn in. To the point that map you usually know the exact pattern that your team is going to follow, as well as what the enemy team is going to do 9 times out of 10. That’s not good, and bad for player retention. Why would you keep playing if you keep witnessing the same thing over and over and over. You wouldn’t unless you were insane lol.

Face the real music. Some of the most successful PvP games ever, like MOBAs such as DOTA 2 and League of Legends, runs on only a few maps, none of them are also big either.

I know how bad the maps of this game is. But I also know how good the maps of ---other--- games are, and that these maps can lend to endless variety of play, given variations of players, variations of content compositions, and game modes. I don't see people complain about the maps in their forums for those games.

Making maps bigger do not solve the problem nor dividing them. Because sections of a map are not consciously designed to be equal, one side may end up with a higher win percentage over the other, and that will also just piss off the player base. A game with only a few good maps is much better off than a game with lots of bad maps. Most game maps are also subject to analytics, servers can now keep track what tracks players most follow, where the most kills and deaths occur. This kind of knowledge lets you design future maps better.

For purposes of the port, and because we are hypothetically budget constrained, and we like to get things out faster, and to get less bugs as well, let's bring in a few of the popular maps first, as a core. We can modify these maps. The rest of the maps are subject to decision, should you want to bring them in, should you modify them, should we just replace them with new maps. Do realize that map designing isn't cheap either. Every feature, content and section of the game can have an estimated man hour cost in developers time, and you can attach a dollar figure for each hour and see if that is within your budget, which for sure, is going to be a bit more limited than an AAA game under a big publisher.

Edited by Anjian, 19 October 2018 - 07:16 PM.

[JadePanther]

Gonna go with.. WHY NOT?

After all who doesnt love taking a 30-60minute patch day and turning it into 6 hours or more.. UE game patches are the thing of nightmares and should only happen 4 times a year at most.. but MWO patches every month with the new mech releases..

but hey we all need to be forced to take a day off from MWO sometimes so why not on patchday.. end of the patchnotes will prolly also say something like have fun patching today we'll see you tomorrow in game..

[JediPanther]

Don't really care if/when pgi tries their hand at mwov2. Given their past game library and the past six years of this game's poor un optomized poorly executed game modes trying to chase the band wagons of other games lacking their own version of a game. I can still run swtor on low at 30fps on a pathetic laptop I bought for a mere $100 using these poor specs

2.40 dual core 2 p9400
4 gig ram
win 10 he ed
pos integrated graphic chip

The gaming rig I had from 2012 which had met all of mwo's recommended specs runs like crap getting worse with each new patch pgi puts out. Looking at Assassin Creed's newest title and their specs I'd laugh to see the specs pgi uses for their work and expect people to have as a minimal to run mw5.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

The UE4 is not an Wonderengine that creates a game on its own, even though some leading devs may not believe it.
Without experience, it can quickly turn into a huge problematic construction site with unsolvable problems that even eclipse a badly modified Cryengine ... which problems even experienced teams have with the UE4 show Ark survival or Fortnite

[barnmaddo]

Does Unreal4 actually add any benefit, or just cost a lot of time and money to retool?

[R5D4]

barnmaddo, on 21 October 2018 - 10:14 AM, said:

Does Unreal4 actually add any benefit, or just cost a lot of time and money to retool?

The only thing I'm really aware of is that the Unreal 4.20 engine supports DirectX 12 which brings with it some performance boosts over the existing version of Cryengine that MWO runs on today. There's also a bunch of subjective statements out there about Unreal being easier to develop for and more stable etc...but you always have to take those statements with a grain of salt.

In general the amount of effort to port MWO over to Unreal 4.20 is, supposedly, about the same as porting it over to a new version of CryEngine. The real advantage, as far as I'm concerned, is that Crytek isn't doing very well financially which puts the future of CryEngine in doubt vs. Unreal Engine which seems to be just fine. So that's more why I'd lean toward using Unreal Engine right now.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

each engine has his own advantages and Disavantages ...not many games in moment with Cryengine ...what this engine in newer Version can make we seeing good by war of the Rights with his very realistic Look

https://warofrights.com/
https://www.youtube....2&v=IWW2rn8Nmn4
hunt:showdown or the VR Titles with the Cry 5

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 21 October 2018 - 10:19 PM.