140 replies to this topic

[Jay Leon Hart]

A quick search shows two games having an engine upgrade at no additional charge to the customer.

Friday the 13th - online multiplayer survival horror / stalker simulator
Blade & Soul - F2P MMORPG

Can someone link an example of a game that upgraded the engine to a ver 2.0 and either made it a wholly separate game or replaced the original, but kept the same art assets?

[Maddermax]

Khobai, on 12 October 2018 - 01:07 AM, said:

of course its in their right. its also in my right not to spend money on their games ever again. which is what would happen.



no it really doesnt defy expectation or precedent at all. especially when the new game would be using the same art assets you already paid for once. and even moreso if they shut down the old game to make way for the new game and deny you access to your old mechs.

if I paid for something once im not paying for it again. that is a perfectly reasonable expectation.

You didn't pay for the art asset. You paid to be able to customize and play that mech in MWO. If MWO2 is ever announced (and lets be fair, we're looking at hypotheticals of a possible game that might never be), likelihood is you'll have to pay to be able to customize and play that mech in MWO2.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice to get it for free, but if you get too hung up on getting everything across, you're going to be disappointed. You'll probably get a few incentives to pick up the new game, discounts and some free stuff for being a prior customer. Getting everything for free though means that PGI would make no money off their time and effort upgrading the game and that's just not how companies work - they still need a revenue stream.

Edited by Maddermax, 12 October 2018 - 01:26 AM.

[The Lighthouse]

Vellron2005, on 12 October 2018 - 12:14 AM, said:

You do realize that the Battletech setting is a finite resource, right? There are only so many mechs..

Yes, it is a finite resource, but it is extremely goddamn big because Battletech is really old frenchise. We are talking about 1986, 32 years in making.

Right now we have 102 unique mechs (what I mean is not counting variants) in the game. There are still 300-ish unique mechs that are not ported to this game yet. If PGI keeps releasing 1 mech per month, that's 25 years worth of mechs.


And not even all extremely popular mechs are in MWO yet. Lawsuit against HG was recently over and we are just back on getting classic mechs like Warhammer IIC.

For god's sake we still do not have complete mech roster for Mech Warrior 2, Mech Commander 1 and its expansion, which are some of the early BT computer games.

But seeing how PGI handles this game, I am not so sure if we ever get a complete roster for Classic mechs alone.

https://mwomercs.com...en-classic-iic/


It is very uncertain we will get decent amount of Classic mechs before MWO goes under.



.....but screw Classic mechs, all I need is Hollander. But even that looks hard..

[Khobai]

Maddermax, on 12 October 2018 - 01:26 AM, said:

You didn't pay for the art asset. You paid to be able to customize and play that mech in MWO. If MWO2 is ever announced (and lets be fair, we're looking at hypotheticals of a possible game that might never be), likelihood is you'll have to pay to be able to customize and play that mech in MWO2. money off their time and effort upgrading the game and that's just not how companies work - they still need a revenue stream.

exactly I paid to be able to customize and play that mech in MWO. if I have to pay again to play the same exact mech that uses the same art and sound assets in MWO2 im not going to pay for it a second time. its absurd to expect anyone to do that.

im not going to do it. And most people wont do it. its a bad business plan to burn your customers and make them pay for the same exact thing a second time. they would never recover from how many players would quit the game if they tried to resell you the same mechpacks in MWO2 that you already bought in MWO1. thats literally one of the dumbest moves PGI could make.

of course PGI needs a revenue stream. but theyre not going to establish a revenue stream by trying to double dip on reselling the same assets from a previous game. nobody is gonna pay for that. the best way PGI can establish a revenue stream for MWO2 is expanding the game to include quads, vehicles, and aerotech. And they should also develop a better supply cache system and an in-game market that allows players to buy and sell mechs/weapons/etc... as MC transactions. Then thered be an actual reason to buy MC.


Seriously this is what you think PGI should do?

"PGI: would you like to rebuy a 5 year old mech pack you already paid for once?"

lmao. F*** NO. worst idea ever.

Edited by Khobai, 12 October 2018 - 02:10 AM.

[Acersecomic]

I would support it, if and only if the licence was given to some other studio that would not ruin the game and leave it to rot, releasing minimal content and not fixing problem nor listening the community while constantly begging for money.

[Wil McCullough]

Khobai, on 12 October 2018 - 02:00 AM, said:

exactly I paid to be able to customize and play that mech in MWO. if I have to pay again to play the same exact mech that uses the same art and sound assets in MWO2 im not going to pay for it a second time. its absurd to expect anyone to do that.

im not going to do it. And most people wont do it. its a bad business plan to burn your customers and make them pay for the same exact thing a second time. they would never recover from how many players would quit the game if they tried to resell you the same mechpacks in MWO2 that you already bought in MWO1. thats literally one of the dumbest moves PGI could make.

of course PGI needs a revenue stream. but theyre not going to establish a revenue stream by trying to double dip on reselling the same assets from a previous game. nobody is gonna pay for that. the best way PGI can establish a revenue stream for MWO2 is expanding the game to include quads, vehicles, and aerotech. And they should also develop a better supply cache system and an in-game market that allows players to buy and sell mechs/weapons/etc... as MC transactions. Then thered be an actual reason to buy MC.


Seriously this is what you think PGI should do?

"PGI: would you like to rebuy a 5 year old mech pack you already paid for once?"

lmao. F*** NO. worst idea ever.

There's like hundreds of mech chassis in the current game. How do you expect pgi to port all your mechs over? They have to be a special kind of stupid to launch the game with hundreds of mechs already in it then give them away free to someone who bought them in another game possibly years ago.

Come on man, you're being unreasonable. I'm not sure what you're realistically expecting here.

[Khobai]

Wil McCullough, on 12 October 2018 - 02:27 AM, said:

There's like hundreds of mech chassis in the current game. How do you expect pgi to port all your mechs over?

Thats PGI's problem, not mine. They made this mess of a game. They need to fix it if they expect me to spend any more money on it. Taking away all my mechs and making me rebuy them is not fixing it. PGI dug themselves into a hole by making a minimally viable product in a defunct game engine, they need to dig themselves out. Losing the faith of your customers is a consequence of that. PGI needs to regain that faith with MW5 and not screwing people over with MWO2.

Wil McCullough, on 12 October 2018 - 02:27 AM, said:

Come on man, you're being unreasonable. I'm not sure what you're realistically expecting here.

Realistically im expecting a train wreck.

And MWO2 will 100% be a train wreck if PGI takes peoples mechs away by shutting down MWO and then tries to force them to rebuy them in MWO2. That wont end well.

Wil McCullough, on 12 October 2018 - 02:27 AM, said:

They have to be a special kind of stupid to launch the game with hundreds of mechs already in it then give them away free to someone who bought them in another game possibly years ago.

but it wouldnt be another game. it would be the same game on a different engine using all the same assets.

when world of tanks went to a new graphics engine they didnt take peoples tanks away. because that wouldve been dumb.

Edited by Khobai, 12 October 2018 - 02:54 AM.

[El Bandito]

Wil McCullough, on 12 October 2018 - 02:27 AM, said:

There's like hundreds of mech chassis in the current game. How do you expect pgi to port all your mechs over? They have to be a special kind of stupid to launch the game with hundreds of mechs already in it then give them away free to someone who bought them in another game possibly years ago.

Come on man, you're being unreasonable. I'm not sure what you're realistically expecting here.

Khobai, on 12 October 2018 - 02:36 AM, said:

Thats PGI's problem not mine. They made this mess of a game. They need to fix it if they expect me to spend any more money on it. Taking away all my mechs and making me rebuy them is not fixing it.

I had my money's worth in MWO, down the the last cent. I wouldn't mind if I lose all my mechs and have to start over. I am personally more afraid of losing my Mercstar community.

Edited by El Bandito, 12 October 2018 - 02:42 AM.

[The Lighthouse]

Wil McCullough, on 12 October 2018 - 02:27 AM, said:

There's like hundreds of mech chassis in the current game. How do you expect pgi to port all your mechs over? They have to be a special kind of stupid to launch the game with hundreds of mechs already in it then give them away free to someone who bought them in another game possibly years ago.

Come on man, you're being unreasonable. I'm not sure what you're realistically expecting here.

I mean, porting mechs should cost far less. Models themselves are already fine and no need for any enhancement. Maybe motions but there should be converters with some adjustments. We are not re-modeling mechs, that would be indeed really costy.

I mean, there hasn't any single case where MMO/F2P games start from fresh with "2.0" mark, unless it is marketed as completely different, new game. Players had accumulated their stuffs for years, and they won't even bother playing 2.0 if none of their stuffs ported.

This game seriously needs engine overhaul, and it needed like 2 years ago.

Edited by The Lighthouse, 12 October 2018 - 03:21 AM.

[The Lighthouse]

Plus, let me tell you guys. It is not mechs that would cost money for PGI, it's maps.



Yes, those handful of maps.



The reason is that in order to save money, PGI most likely used a lot of assets from Crytek that are legally bound to be used with Cryengine only.

It means in order to 'port' a map with Crytek assets, you have to remove them first and replace with PGI's original assets.


THAT actually would cost a lot of money. We are also talking about all of those Siege maps from FP as well.


Some maps may need minor works, while others may need major re-work or have to be created from scratch. If there are too much work, PGI may decide to NOT port the map altogether.

Maps will be the one that consumes PGI's money if they ever decide to make MWO 2.0.

[Bud Crue]

In answer to the question asked in the thread title: sure, I’d suppport recreating MWO2 on the unreal engine. But only after it existed. PGI is PGI. We have all learned much over the life of this game and watching this company’s evolution. The reality is that they would need to earn our “support” by making any theoretical new version of MWO live up to the expectations of what they promised that this version was to be and yet still is not even after all these years. Thus, no pre-release supporter packs, no kick starter investment, no nothing in terms of $ investment until an actual live game were presented that stands on its own merits of quality. If they were to produce such a game, I would gladly throw money at it and PGI once again.

[Scyther]

Ssimilar to Bud, I won't toss money at PGI anymore for a promise, or even a 'work in progress'. Been there, done that. Apparently they are taking a corporate stand against global warming, because their pace of development is glacial.

That said, I will take a look at MW5 after it has released and reliable reports on it are available... again, no up-front money from me. If it is decent quality and creative, I will pay and play, if not, I'll stay away.

As for MWO 2.0, my current position is: despite all the stumbles along the way, MWO is a quite decent mech combat shooter - if you enjoy various shadings of 'team deathmatch'. I enjoyed that for a long time, but it's just stale for me now. A dozen or so matches every month or two is my current limit before I've had enough and go elsewhere.

If MWO 2.0 was released on the best engine in the world, it would still be MWO Team Deathmatch. I would check it out for the graphics, then drop back to a few matches every couple months. If they ported over all my mechs, then where is the financial incentive for them? I have hundreds of mechs, and have sent them a whack of money over the years - which they essentially pissed up a rope paying salaries to take months to make minor tweaks and changes, or add modes that nobody cared about. It's not like I need more mechs.

Inverse kinematics, destructible terrain, more responsive combat, better weapon graphics... all would be nice to have. None of them would change the game or the fact that PGI can't make core game modes (FP) worth playing.

I would like to support PGI. I am appreciative that they woke the slumbering BT game universe from its' hibernation. I believe they made a good Mech shooter. But I won't spend money on another 'minimally viable product' or a lazy development team.

Edited by MadBadger, 12 October 2018 - 04:22 AM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

The Lighthouse, on 12 October 2018 - 03:32 AM, said:

Plus, let me tell you guys. It is not mechs that would cost money for PGI, it's maps


Yes, those handful of maps.



The reason is that in order to save money, PGI most likely used a lot of assets from Crytek that are legally bound to be used with Cryengine only.

It means in order to 'port' a map with Crytek assets, you have to remove them first and replace with PGI's original assets.


THAT actually would cost a lot of money. We are also talking about all of those Siege maps from FP as well.


Some maps may need minor works, while others may need major re-work or have to be created from scratch. If there are too much work, PGI may decide to NOT port the map altogether.

Maps will be the one that consumes PGI's money if they ever decide to make MWO 2.0.

thats nonsense ...you not porting maps from crytek ...or use assets ...you build maps from the ground with own assets and use only the engine with his tools ...you pay not a car and buy extra for using the steerwheel...Its a workfull job to create all the assets ,the textures and models ...its the job to sell a game.yes handmake maps a lot work like to build a car ...otherside with handmade maps you have unique looking maps withthats not looks like a 16bit game with 4 groundtexures ...gigantic buildtime before matchs and the lot of terrain and placement bugs like flying assets and holes in terrain and not all looks like variations of clonemaps

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 12 October 2018 - 04:39 AM.

[Wil McCullough]

The Lighthouse, on 12 October 2018 - 03:21 AM, said:

I mean, porting mechs should cost far less. Models themselves are already fine and no need for any enhancement. Maybe motions but there should be converters with some adjustments. We are not re-modeling mechs, that would be indeed really costy.

I mean, there hasn't any single case where MMO/F2P games start from fresh with "2.0" mark, unless it is marketed as completely different, new game. Players had accumulated their stuffs for years, and they won't even bother playing 2.0 if none of their stuffs ported.

This game seriously needs engine overhaul, and it needed like 2 years ago.

it's not the cost. it's the ridiculous logistics.

you're talking redevelopment of assets that can take years. and that's just for the mechs.

and then you're talking the different mechs everyone bought from since the game started. players that may or may not have quit the game. players with multiple alts, all of which may have purchased different mechs, no mechs at all and all with different e-mail addresses and possibly different credit cards/paypal accounts etc.

how is anyone, let alone pgi (who can't code their way out of a wet paperbag) going to port over that database mess? how many accounts are there in mwo even? according to jarl's, it has 210,420 inactive accounts and 40,629 active ones. those don't include accounts that have played less than 10 games. that's a huge database (that'll only get bigger over time) that needs to be stored, tracked and serviced.

if i made a mwo account in 2014, bought a purifier, then lost interest in the game, is mwo2 supposed to give me the purifier even though there may or may not be a purifier in mwo2? now multiply that conundrum by 251,048. some support guy's eyelid is probably twitching like crazy after reading that.

Edited by Wil McCullough, 12 October 2018 - 05:18 AM.

[Almond Brown]

If the current Community was going to go to a MWO2 game, why in frack would I want follow the SALT Miners from here to there? They are the ones who have killed MWO in the first place...

Good plan PGI! Make a new MWO game, in a new Engine, then give all the "Saltines" their stuff for FREE and then ask others to come join the MWO2 "Islanders Club"... LOL!

This place is some kinda funny...

[Unnatural Growth]

Would I support porting MWO to Unreal?

You mean like emotional support?

Sure. Go for it PGI.

Or are you actually asking if I'll help pay for it?

Nope. Or more correctly, "Oh HELL NO".

IF they port it, AND it's amazing, AND all my mechs and inventory is ported over, THEN I may start spending money on this game again. But I will want to see the finished product first. Before giving them a single dollar.

PGI painted themselves into this position by making the "business" (trying not to laugh) decisions they made. They picked the game engine entirely because of it's cheap price. (I think they actually got PAID to use it, or some other such unholy arrangement that drove them to pick that engine-BUT it was NOT done because it was the most "suitable" engine. It was the cheapest one they could find). They had to then assbackwards engineer that engine code into something they could use on the game, altering it's code with a chainsaw. Then they let the only programmer on their staff that knew anything at all about writing that code to leave. Now they're stuck with an outdated engine, and a bollocks'd up source code that no one left at PGI can understand. Hence no actual game development since.

Some of the list of "things" that PGI claims can't be done because of the choice in game engine they made:

Knockdowns
Melee combat
Switchable ballistic ordnance
Free for All matches
Larger teams, more players per match
Proper AI
Ground/Air units

Stuff we want*

*Whatever the player base "ask-of-the-month" happens to be, the reason for the "No" is always, "Because Cryengine".


If all these things were suddenly "possible" by moving to Unreal, that is one thing, and would be a "good thing". BUT even if the game was ported to Unreal, and those things made "possible", it doesn't mean those things would actually make it into the game. Or be well done. Because PGI.

It would be theoretically possible to do them at that point, as there are Unreal code writers running around loose in this world. Now getting PGI to actually do all this, and hunt down and actually HIRE some reasonably talented code writers, and even more unlikely, letting them FINISH it, and even maybe, I don't know STICK AROUND afterwards....

....Well now, PGI would have to suddenly STOP being PGI...

And I doubt very much if that very last hurdle can be overcome.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Almond Brown, on 12 October 2018 - 09:05 AM, said:

If the current Community was going to go to a MWO2 game, why in frack would I want follow the SALT Miners from here to there? They are the ones who have killed MWO in the first place...

Good plan PGI! Make a new MWO game, in a new Engine, then give all the "Saltines" their stuff for FREE and then ask others to come join the MWO2 "Islanders Club"... LOL!

This place is some kinda funny...

the most of teh Salters the old Founders tahts bring MWO with hundreds and tousends of $ to birth and over the Open Beta...to the Time thats Russ Bullock says ...the Old BT/MW Fans not longer the Targetgroup ...im will esport Guys..2014 the Transverse (thats in UE4) Disaster

https://www.pcinvasi...lout-continues/

https://ultimacodex....y-didnt-use-it/

https://www.crowdfun...refund-process/

with Marketing storys over a Wing Commander License and a Debacle ..and many good programmers and Artists leaves PGI 2014/15, two goes to relic, one build his own company

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 12 October 2018 - 11:14 AM.

[Josh Seles]

I like this idea and I'd be ok with a small amount to support it. Maybe $10 to $15.
But anything more than that, and I'd need some convincing.

Some definite improvements would be needed. Some good ones would be ammo switching, crit-splitting and Inverse Kinematics. I'd still need to see them functioning though.

As for the content, PGI has records of what we've spent money on. I'd want anything I have that can't be bought for Cbills ported over as-is, i.e. Mech packs, Loyalty mechs, champions, GXP. Maybe stockpiled equipment. As for Mechs I got for Cbills, I'd be ok with equivalent value of spacebucks.

[Khobai]

Almond Brown, on 12 October 2018 - 09:05 AM, said:

If the current Community was going to go to a MWO2 game, why in frack would I want follow the SALT Miners from here to there? They are the ones who have killed MWO in the first place...

Good plan PGI! Make a new MWO game, in a new Engine, then give all the "Saltines" their stuff for FREE and then ask others to come join the MWO2 "Islanders Club"... LOL!

This place is some kinda funny...

Uh... Its not about getting stuff for free. its about not losing stuff I already paid for. Since MWO1 would more than likely get shut down if MWO2 was ever created.

I would rather not have a new version of MWO if it meant losing all my mechs.

Which is why there will likely never be a new version of MWO. Because a lot of people dont want to lose access to mechs they already invested in.

Edited by Khobai, 12 October 2018 - 11:43 AM.

[JediPanther]

Cementi, on 11 October 2018 - 11:06 PM, said:

Sadly I wouldn't. Simply too many failed deliveries with this game. Issues that have been ignored for AGES or things that would have been fixed by anyone willing to admit they made a mistake. Which PGI never will. At least nothing major.

My faith in PGI is pretty much non existent. I check the site now and then to see if anything new and interesting is being done that might get me to come back but all I see are endless flash sales.

I honestly feel like the customer base for this game is a dying horse that PGI is beating to death till they get enough out of them with MW 5 being the last cash grab before they renew or lose the license.

The game was fun once upon a time and had such huge promise. The one thing I am grateful of still is that MWO got battletech the exposure needed to make HBS make their game which I love. I really need to play that again, I just got sidetracked.

I feel the same way. Normally i'm not a player of turn based games but HBS BT is the only one I do have that actually holds my interest and is fun. Most of my games are real time or open world like skyrim where I can just be doing whatever I like. I fear that mw5 is going the same way Duke Nukem Forever did. Lots of hype,lots of fancy marketing, and a very poorly done boring sub par game play experience using outdated tropes or old game play design elements.