70 replies to this topic

[LordNothing]

so if epic is handing out free wheelbarrows of money for exclusive new games. does it not make sense to redux mwo on unreal and rebrand it as mwo2, make it an epic exclusive and we can postpone mwo's death another decade?

the reasons for this are many. first of all you waive the engine fees right off the bat, and most of your assets already exist in the unreal engine instance. you got that fancy procedural generation that can make maps a bit more affordable to produce in large quantities. you just need to produce the multiplayer elements of the game.

secondly you can take what you learned about mwo and make its sequel a lot more sustainable for the long term. for example designing future proof maintainable code which needs to be serviceable for a decade or more. avoid the problems of buckets, modes, faction play, progress perpetually being a mere boil on the buttox of mech packs.

thirdly, proper monetization. out the door the game needs to have more ways of liberating the consumers of their cash. more purchasable content. first of all is a lot more customization. more equipment and weapons that needs to be bought. then throw in variants of those. other equipment like drop ships, other supplemental ground and air npc units. bases, infrastructure, territory, factories, research facilities, etc. all things that you can charge a premium for.

Edited by LordNothing, 12 August 2019 - 12:21 AM.

[Prototelis]

Mwo: The REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEElaunch

[Rycard]

It would depend on one major detail...if I have to repurchase all the mechs i bought with cash I'll walk away and never come back.

Assuming they allow us to bring our collection to the new game, my next caveat is whether the game becomes a real MMO or at least have 50 or so maps.

[Snowhawk]

Rycard, on 12 August 2019 - 12:15 AM, said:

Assuming they allow us to bring our collection to the new game....

Dream on.... The reason of a relaunch is to make Money again! Think About EA -Sports and Fifa 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and so on...

[Hanky Spam]

If there EVER will be a MWO2 will also highly depend on the success of MW5 and if Microsoft also grants the right to PGI to renew the license.

Since we have already pretty much subsidised all the mechs in MW5 I doubt that they will charge us again for mechs in a possible MWO2. I would rather more expect either a monthly fee and/or that MWO2 will be a paid addon for MW5 with micro transactions again with the exception that mechs won't be part of the micro transactions.

[LordNothing]

Rycard, on 12 August 2019 - 12:15 AM, said:

It would depend on one major detail...if I have to repurchase all the mechs i bought with cash I'll walk away and never come back.

Assuming they allow us to bring our collection to the new game, my next caveat is whether the game becomes a real MMO or at least have 50 or so maps.

this always comes up in these kinds of threads. if its going to be f2p it needs a way to support itself. i for one don't want to have to buy 300 mechs again. but if its a new game with new maps and new modes it might be worth it. i can see some kind of ronin system where if you buy a mech bay, you have the option of transferring a mech from your mwo inventory (provided an mwo2 counterpart exists).

i think the fact that mwo has revolved so much around mech packs is actually a good thing, in that a lot of the stuff other than mechs would be available for purchase. if you set it up where much of the cbill sink is actually in configuring rather than owning the mechs and make mechs very cheap or significantly easier to grind for. i wouldn't mind having to re-grind for mechs so long as they are obtainable without an up front purchase.

there's also the possibility of not using the f2p model, but idk how that would sell.

[LordNothing]

Hanky Spam, on 12 August 2019 - 12:45 AM, said:

If there EVER will be a MWO2 will also highly depend on the success of MW5 and if Microsoft also grants the right to PGI to renew the license.

Since we have already pretty much subsidised all the mechs in MW5 I doubt that they will charge us again for mechs in a possible MWO2. I would rather more expect either a monthly fee and/or that MWO2 will be a paid addon for MW5 with micro transactions again with the exception that mechs won't be part of the micro transactions.

likely, but it seems like this offer from epic would speed things along. mw5 has to come out first and has to be profitable. not to mention mwo2 would be directly derived from it. cool thing is you can just move your dev team over to mwo2 from mw5 and they are already experienced with the engine and workflow. and im sure ms will grant pgi an extension if pgi makes it worth their while.

[Nesutizale]

I think the biggest problem with an MWO2 wouldn't be the technical side, with MW5 laying the foundation but how to moneties it and getting lots of people into the game.

Also it would be questionable how to maintain a steady stream of new people and content.
Battletech is more or less a locked in frenchise. Lets compare it to Warframe for example. In Warframe they can do whatever they want in creating new units, weapons, abilitys and what not. PGI can create some more mechs, also there is allready a ton of mechs. Weapons, well you can have a few that haven't been done yet but you will reach the end of it pretty fast.

So contentwise its a bit problematic. Sure new maps are nice but what they realy need is a good progression system that gives you the feeling of archiving something, more then the skilltree or buying a new mech every now and then. Espacialy when you have people that have allready 200mechs.

They have to think very, very hard about the gameplay side. I think following Warframes PvE style wouldn't be so bad for a new start. MW5 allready has coop gameplay against NPCs so build upon that. Open up the Merc mode to have persistant 4 player units where every player has something from playing, not just the host as it currently is.

Later open it further by increasing unit sizes with NPCs and more Players. When that is established open the world by letting units take part in "world events" like beeing hired for big battles / events we know from the lore. Still mostly PvE but bigger.

Slowly opening the entire gameplay up more and more to keep things interesting.

[C E Dwyer]

If there ever is a relaunch of MWO

There WILL be 'micro' transactions.

[Khobai]

Rycard, on 12 August 2019 - 12:15 AM, said:

It would depend on one major detail...if I have to repurchase all the mechs i bought with cash I'll walk away and never come back.

then what incentive do they have to make MWO2?

the way the game's business model is currently set up they literally cant sell you anything else but mechpacks. it was a fail business model from the start because as soon as mech packs hit the saturation point the gig was up.

I personally think MWO2 would have to dump the F2P model. Nobody is going to buy mechpacks all over again. They should have the game be limited free to play with only a few unlocked mechs, buying the game one time unlocks all mechs, and then they should periodically release paid expansions/DLC. You could also do cosmetic microtransactions. But I think the whole mech pack business model is done for.

Hanky Spam, on 12 August 2019 - 12:45 AM, said:

if Microsoft also grants the right to PGI to renew the license.

why wouldnt they renew it? if PGI wants to renew it theres no reason for microsoft to not to go along with it. because microsoft would rather make money off it than not make money off it.

Edited by Khobai, 12 August 2019 - 02:33 AM.

[MeiSooHaityu]

I don't think there will ever be another MWO. If there was though, it might be an Epic exclusive :/.

I don't know if I'd come back for another MWO though regardless, so I'm not too worried about it. MW5 is launching in a few months (or few months and a year depending) and BattleTech has already been out a year with another expansion on the way. I'm happy with that.

[LordNothing]

Nesutizale, on 12 August 2019 - 01:21 AM, said:

I think the biggest problem with an MWO2 wouldn't be the technical side, with MW5 laying the foundation but how to moneties it and getting lots of people into the game.

Also it would be questionable how to maintain a steady stream of new people and content.
Battletech is more or less a locked in frenchise. Lets compare it to Warframe for example. In Warframe they can do whatever they want in creating new units, weapons, abilitys and what not. PGI can create some more mechs, also there is allready a ton of mechs. Weapons, well you can have a few that haven't been done yet but you will reach the end of it pretty fast.

So contentwise its a bit problematic. Sure new maps are nice but what they realy need is a good progression system that gives you the feeling of archiving something, more then the skilltree or buying a new mech every now and then. Espacialy when you have people that have allready 200mechs.

They have to think very, very hard about the gameplay side. I think following Warframes PvE style wouldn't be so bad for a new start. MW5 allready has coop gameplay against NPCs so build upon that. Open up the Merc mode to have persistant 4 player units where every player has something from playing, not just the host as it currently is.

Later open it further by increasing unit sizes with NPCs and more Players. When that is established open the world by letting units take part in "world events" like beeing hired for big battles / events we know from the lore. Still mostly PvE but bigger.

Slowly opening the entire gameplay up more and more to keep things interesting.

new stuff is possible. lore is very diverse and very open to interpretation. enough wiggle room to make new content. like weapons for example. in the book they had names, like the pontiac 100 rather than the ac20 rating it carries. you can have weapons of similar damage rating with minor differences. some can be aesthetic or functional. as for mechs there are still quite a few left, but not enough to make a mech pack only model work. but you could expand into protomechs, quads and superheavy mechs. and there are still quite a few variants we dont have yet.

non-mech units should be limited to npcs. combined arms was cool in living legends but it tended to make non mech units stronger than they should be. i remember that first mission of mw4mercs where you could just walk through the tanks. it should be like that. but if you pool your team's npc assets you can do some serious damage with it. my idea for npcs is pretty much to treat them like pets. command them to do stuff. you lose them when they die but they are cheap.

[Prototelis]

LordNothing, on 12 August 2019 - 05:28 AM, said:

new stuff is possible. lore is very diverse and very open to interpretation.

lol not according to the grognards in this or the battletech community.

Edited by Prototelis, 12 August 2019 - 06:20 AM.

[LordNothing]

Prototelis, on 12 August 2019 - 05:29 AM, said:

lol not according to the gornards in this or the battletech community.

are they reading the same books i am? lol. maybe they are fond of a specific edition of a particular rule book that they got when they were 12. idk. battletech rules are battletech rules, for you know, battletech, a board game. sources for a video game adaptation need to be significantly more diverse, say the hundred or so novels. ive only read like 10 or so so far but there's a lot of stuff in those you could to produce content for use in an mmo proper (not an arena shooter posing as an mmo proper) edition of mwo.

then there are the horrid cockpit items and bolt ons that don't fit into the battletech universe in any way at all and i still dont have my atlas clownhat. sticking a pontiac 100 in my yen low wang is more important to me than having a hula girl on my dash and is significantly more inline with lore.

Edited by LordNothing, 12 August 2019 - 05:48 AM.

[Prototelis]

lol, the technical lore is primarily informed by board game mechanics people are very attached to.

The novels take a lot of liberties with the technology, and seem to be allowed to do whatever as long as it isn't directly stepping on anyone elses toes plot armor wise.

[Nesutizale]

How dare you say that my Hula Lady isn't fitting into lore!

When I was saying that there wasn't much new stuff I was going by the basic rules and I assumed that MWO2 would be MWO with just a different engine and more maps and gamemodes not an Battletech MMO.

When you want to talk about creating a true Battletech MMO, that is, at least to me, a completly different beast alltogether and one I highly, highly doubt that PGI can create.
To me that would mean to be able to do stuff on foot, in vehicles and mechs, ground and space. Owning property, have cities to visit, much more professions you can take beside Mechwarrior like beeing a spy or a trader.

When you come from that side the books offer so much. Even if they would just let you play roles/characters from the books, not even inventing anything new, you would have content for ages.

So when talking about MWO2 we should first get on common ground what we want. A better MWO with more map and modes or are we talking about an actual MMO ?

[Prototelis]

Now what would be rad; if PGIs random map generator isn't *** and that can be used to generate compelling maps for PVP that would be sauce.

[Nesutizale]

Prototelis, on 12 August 2019 - 06:22 AM, said:

lol, the technical lore is primarily informed by board game mechanics people are very attached to.
The novels take a lot of liberties with the technology, and seem to be allowed to do whatever as long as it isn't directly stepping on anyone elses toes plot armor wise.

That is true. During the novels things changed very often in how they work. Like autocannons sometimes fired one round, sometimes many. Lasers of the same class could oneshot arms of and next time its a scratch...and don't get me started on Mech-Fu. Mechs could sometimes not lift there legs properly and next time you see it, its doing roundhouse kicks. Okay that was MWDA I think but still.....

I would say lets stick to the latest rules as they are the most common factor overall.

[LordNothing]

Nesutizale, on 12 August 2019 - 06:32 AM, said:

How dare you say that my Hula Lady isn't fitting into lore!

When I was saying that there wasn't much new stuff I was going by the basic rules and I assumed that MWO2 would be MWO with just a different engine and more maps and gamemodes not an Battletech MMO.

When you want to talk about creating a true Battletech MMO, that is, at least to me, a completly different beast alltogether and one I highly, highly doubt that PGI can create.
To me that would mean to be able to do stuff on foot, in vehicles and mechs, ground and space. Owning property, have cities to visit, much more professions you can take beside Mechwarrior like beeing a spy or a trader.

When you come from that side the books offer so much. Even if they would just let you play roles/characters from the books, not even inventing anything new, you would have content for ages.

So when talking about MWO2 we should first get on common ground what we want. A better MWO with more map and modes or are we talking about an actual MMO ?

thats just the version of the game i want. what mwo should have been. pgi is going to be the one doing the work and will make what they want to make. be it the best battletech mmo possible or a slightly better arena shooter. the thread was mostly meant to explore the potential of using the epic store exclusive as a way to help fund mwo2 more than how it should be done.

Edited by LordNothing, 12 August 2019 - 07:22 AM.

[JediPanther]

Even if pgi did an mwo2 I'd just go meh. They've proven all they want is the money. They could do all the things they "talked of" about mwo,data mine this forum for ideals and implement them according to the forum and not their "pgi implementation" which we all know is crap...looking at you long tom and cw.