A bait and switch is specifically advertising a product, usually on sale or as a bargain, and then either not having that product or not having it in sufficient quantity in order to push a customer onto a more expensive product. This is why for example McDonalds ads commonly include the phrase "while supplies last."
Like I said; its a little dishonest to switch platforms at the last minute, but it isn't a bait and switch.
I don't see the advertised steam key. It is the reason why they gave a refund no questions asked, it was not out of the goodness of their hearts, it was simply to avoid lawsuits. To each their own, those who wish to enjoy the game, I wish them but the best, me and many others will simply enjoy other games.
if you want to support PGI keep it to your own, no need to advertise like you are some saint in supporting a company who will do anything just to keep them afloat.
PLEASE STOP HATING PGI TOO!
their decision is theirs to keep them afloat. for them SURVIVING is more important than HONOR that is just it.
Personally, after seeing how PGI handled MWO, im ready for this chapter to end. I think its time gor someone else to pick up the banner and run with it. Someone who actually respects their customers, and the battletech community. In short i hope they lose the license and some one else picks it up. PGI had their chance, and in my eyes failed.
PGI is not a charity, and I am not their donor, thus I am not 'supporting' them. I am their customer, thus I am offered a business transaction which is either attractive to me or not. I never understood this 'support'-mentality. The interaction between PGI and the customers is guided by hard economic factors. Btw., my own nostalgia and what I am willining to pay for it, is one of those factors. As my funds are limited there are naturally limits to what I buy when satisfying my nostalgia. Also, my BT nostalgia is in rough competition with other nostalgias, all of which offer me something for my money. Again: they want my money, they (may) need my money, they face competition. So they have to give me good stuff. That is good advice. It is easy to fall for your own nostalgia. If MW:5 is good, I'll buy it. Simple as that. I might sit out Epic and wait for Steam, but I will buy a good BT-based game for sure. However, MWO is a simple arena shooter - to be clear, I like it a lot, play it all the time because I like it - but it is a simple game. A single player game like MW:5 driven by campaign, story, characters etc., and clever AI to oppose you... that is a a wholly different thing. I cannot just hope they get it right, I want to know they get it right before I spend my money. That is why I wait for the finished product. I hope it is good. I just do not count on it. -
Based on the preview trailers, clever AI, I'm not sure. You also cannot develop clever AI without some period of intensive game testing, both closed and open, and not with the months time between now and December.
The problem I have with dealing with AI, even on coop, is that it gets boring quickly once you have consumed the main story line.
There are ways to deal with this but which is criticized as part of the "game as a service" model, where the game is actually an unfinished story, in which when introduced, the game offers the basic story arc, and then the arc ends, and then the game presents you events for you to level up, acquire new content, to prepare yourself for the next incoming arc, which will come with a new patch or download. The game will always be an unfinished story, time to time it will update itself with not just new storylines, but side storylines and seasonal events. And it will keep going on and on, an unfinished narrative that continues its story telling, offer endless coop events, while adding new content.
The AI is indeed a big trouble point. When they can't get it right fight will be boring and could ruin the game even if everything else is good.
As for testing, that should have been a continously process during the entire time and I realy, realy hope that PGI dosn't make the mistake to just have it in that one month.
Beside that open testing isn't a necessary. Old game where developed without it and they where good, heck even better then most open tested games today. Open Betas today are the Demo of old. They have nothing to do with real testing except maybe server stability.
Games as a service
Yah I am still waiting that someone does that right. I wouldn't mind games as a service that much when it wasn't, as you said it right, so broken.
I mean when you would get the game with a finished story arc and then have some gameplay that is just to keep you involved, maybe drop a coin for cosmetics and have skirmishes, archivents, online mode and so on, maybe some mini quests. Stuff that keeps you involved in the franchise and generates some money for the devs.
And then you get the next big update with a complete storyarc, new equipment and so on.
I think there could be potention in that as devs could, with mini quests for example, guid players to the next big release.
Think of MW2, you played for either of the 2 factions and finished the storyarc. Then in between there would be a series of missions where you would be captured by Clan Ghost Bear and have to work your way back to warrior status. Then you release MW2 GBL with its complete storyarc.
Nesutizale, on 01 September 2019 - 03:24 AM, said:
The AI is indeed a big trouble point. When they can't get it right fight will be boring and could ruin the game even if everything else is good.
As for testing, that should have been a continously process during the entire time and I realy, realy hope that PGI dosn't make the mistake to just have it in that one month.
Beside that open testing isn't a necessary. Old game where developed without it and they where good, heck even better then most open tested games today. Open Betas today are the Demo of old. They have nothing to do with real testing except maybe server stability.
I cannot agree with you on that. I see many established, heavily experienced game companies that do extensive open testing on games, expansions and content material for months before ever putting them live.
Quote
Games as a service
Yah I am still waiting that someone does that right. I wouldn't mind games as a service that much when it wasn't, as you said it right, so broken.
Yes, there are companies that do it right. Here is a game that did it right. Its getting its own screen adaptation.
Quote
I mean when you would get the game with a finished story arc and then have some gameplay that is just to keep you involved, maybe drop a coin for cosmetics and have skirmishes, archivents, online mode and so on, maybe some mini quests. Stuff that keeps you involved in the franchise and generates some money for the devs.
And then you get the next big update with a complete storyarc, new equipment and so on.
Yup.
Quote
I think there could be potention in that as devs could, with mini quests for example, guid players to the next big release.
Think of MW2, you played for either of the 2 factions and finished the storyarc. Then in between there would be a series of missions where you would be captured by Clan Ghost Bear and have to work your way back to warrior status. Then you release MW2 GBL with its complete storyarc.
Something like that yes just for an example.
You can not only release a new chapter, but also content that includes mechs, pilots, and supplementary events.
Once the main event is done, you can also have seasonal events to keep the player base busy, and grinding for something. You continue to release new content with these events as updates.
This isn't new. Its been done. Many times. Enough times you can call it an industry of its own. They make up some of the most successful games in the planet.
Open testing
The ones that I have been part of where more like a Demo. Well except Anthem that was just a mess and it stayed a mess. Gosh all the feedback we gave and hardly anything was resolved with the final game.
But since I don't test everything on the market there are sure some companies who do it right, would be sad if everyone would mess up.
Still before the internet there where also games and testing without a public and games where still good. Some people even refere to it to be the time when games where delivered finished instead of the day-one-patch era we have today. So basicly, no. Open testing isn't neccessary but when done right can improve a game...also when the devs listen and do something. Yes I look at you Anthem.
(Sorry I was so dissapointed with Anthem it left a mark)
As for the games you posted
I only know Fate as anime, didn't even know there where games and what is based on what. Just found Fate on Netflix or Amazon one day and watched it.
Fire Emblem...heard the name somewhere, never played it or know anything else about it.
That said...seeing the Nintendo logo makes me guess both are console exclusive? That might explain why I never heard about them.
I don't work for PGI. I'm just a mediocre player who really enjoys this game.
I pre-ordered MWMercs 5.
Since Russ Bullock's announcement that PGI is now releasing MWMERCS 5 on Epic games there's been a lot of vitriol.
My take on this is:
1. PGI and Russ Bullock don't owe me anything but a good game. They can release it through whoever they want because PGI is THEIR company. People whine as if they own shares of PGI. They don't. PGI works hard, pays employees, and probably pays ridiculous taxes. In my opinion, they are already incredibly responsive, gracious and generous to the MWO community. I'm guessing many of the folks who gripe about PGI have never bought a mechpack or anything else with real money to support the company.
2. I want PGI to make good business decisions because I want them to MAKE MONEY. I want them to MAKE AS MUCH MONEY AS THEY POSSIBLY CAN. If they make money, they can keep supporting this awesome revival of Mechwarrior. If they DON't MAKE MONEY, we will be back to playing mechwarrior living legends.
3. How can you help?
a. Keep your MWMERCS 5 pre-order if you already paid for it.
b. Order MWMERCS 5 if you haven't already.
c. Buy a mechpack today. I am. I'm gonna spend another $20 on a mechpack to support PGI.
Let's be grateful for a hard-working company and support them.
UPDATE: I just bought the Dervish Standard Pack for $20. A small price for a lot of fun in the mechlab and the battlefield. See you out there!
Who the hell do you think you are. There are many of us who have invested more than what you have to a company that pretty much stabbed us in the back. You expect many of us after such a long time to continue supporting a company that abandoned us backers, customers and fans of the franchise after the stunt they pulled at that AMA? HELL NO.
They failed us and now they have to pay the price for the betrayal they committed to the community. They are not loyal to us here. I've been playing in this franchise since Mech2 and PGI has stabbed us in the back. Had they not taken that epic games deal, Things would've been hell of a lot different than what we have right now.
I do not support a company that committed a bait and switch situation hoping to have locked us out of what we should've been given. A choice. No one is going to save them for what they did.
Nesutizale, on 01 September 2019 - 05:58 AM, said:
Open testing
The ones that I have been part of where more like a Demo. Well except Anthem that was just a mess and it stayed a mess. Gosh all the feedback we gave and hardly anything was resolved with the final game.
But since I don't test everything on the market there are sure some companies who do it right, would be sad if everyone would mess up.
Still before the internet there where also games and testing without a public and games where still good. Some people even refere to it to be the time when games where delivered finished instead of the day-one-patch era we have today. So basicly, no. Open testing isn't neccessary but when done right can improve a game...also when the devs listen and do something. Yes I look at you Anthem.
(Sorry I was so dissapointed with Anthem it left a mark)
As for the games you posted
I only know Fate as anime, didn't even know there where games and what is based on what. Just found Fate on Netflix or Amazon one day and watched it.
Fire Emblem...heard the name somewhere, never played it or know anything else about it.
That said...seeing the Nintendo logo makes me guess both are console exclusive? That might explain why I never heard about them.
Fate has grown to be a franchise from the original Fate Stay Night, followed by a series of games, and then sequels and prequels of the series.
But the gem of the franchise is the mobile game Fate Grand Order, the chapters of which are also written by the same Nasu who did the stories for the Fate anime series and games. Nothing has grossed more money for Sony, and FGO is a legend both for fans and the games business ---- one of the highest grossing games in the history of gaming, where it has grossed over $3 billion in revenue.
Fire Emblem is fast rising RPG franchise published by Nintendo from its Intelligent System studios. All the game have been on NIntendo devices except for the crown piece, Fire Emblem Heroes, which is on mobile. FEH has made more money than any Nintendo game up to date.
But my point about these games is not about the franchises themselves but how they deliver content. There are many successful and profitable mobile RPGs that enjoy a similar template.
The game comes downloaded with a number of chapters.
If you finish the chapters, feel free to do events where more content is released.
A new chapter is introduced with an incoming patch. New content is also released with the new chapter.
Finish the new chapter, off to do events again, leveling, gathering material, getting new content.
Events comes in seasons and in limited time. Events can also be repeated for newer players.
New players will download the latest version of the game, which includes the latest chapters up to date.
Now a lot of money are made through gacha or random rolling for new content. But the best games will enable you to complete storylines by upgrading basic, common and free characters, and progression allows you to obtain some currency to make these rolls. So its entirely possible to play the game through an F2P manner. But many players are also diehard fans that need to gamble money to get their favorite waifu or husbandoo.
One of the things that the BT/MW franchise is missing out is integrating and marketing pilots, because guess what, players like waifus and husbandoos.
In hindsight, for Mechwarrior, I would not have added quirks on mechs themselves. I would have introduced a pilot system and the pilots have the quirks instead. Using the pilot on its proper mech enables use of the maximum potential of the mech and the pilot.
Instead of a skill system, the pilot itself is the skill system. You train up the pilot for one mech. Using a trained pilot on a new mech will only result in a training cost but you don't need to skill up the mech from scratch.
BT/MW has tons of pilots in lore. That's one super resource. You can easily add more from scratch too, create new stories for them. Every chapter update to the game introduces new characters and pilots with their own stories.
New content like pilots and crews can also be earned as free by completing the missions, grinding event of mission requirements, and the chapters.
Its not hard to envision a Battletech/Mechwarrior game where the updates are not focused on the mech pack, but a new update that adds a new story chapter and arc, and with it, adds new maps, new mechs, new pilots and weapons. And you do it on and on and on and on. This gives more weight to the RPG feel of the game. We can still have an arena for bouts of PvP, but its secondary to the game where fighting through story campaigns and event coop are primary.
There are many successful precedents for this model, not just RPGs but also with MMORPGs.
One of the things that the BT/MW franchise is missing out is integrating and marketing pilots, because guess what, players like waifus and husbandoos.
I get where you are comming from a "technical" point of view. Yes that mechanic works for a lot of games and might work for MWO players who are allready familiar with the lore. For new players a Natasha Kerensky would just be a name or at best specific stats they like.
Sure the "gota catch them all" mania would still apply and surely be a way for PGI to make money of it.
Personaly its not something I would want, grinding and collecting where never something that keept me playing.
Quote
In hindsight, for Mechwarrior, I would not have added quirks on mechs themselves. I would have introduced a pilot system and the pilots have the quirks instead. Using the pilot on its proper mech enables use of the maximum potential of the mech and the pilot.
I would make a differance here:
Quirks - Bring underperforming mechs up to level or give them a niche to excel in.
Skills - Stats that give you artifical improvements
Its importend to make this differanciation because Quirks are a game balance thing. They are kinda needed on some mechs so that one would play them at all.
Skills on the other hand is something more complex. I would seperate them into two general terms. Player-skill and Stats-skill.
Player-skills are what the person can do, his own experiance, reaction time etc.
Stats-skills are artificaly introduced values that have nothing to do with how good a player is.
Now one has to decide what MWO should put its focus on. Do we focus on player-skills or Stats-skills?
Personaly I think that MWO leans more towards player-skills while a tactical game like HBS Battletech would be a stats-skill game.
Therefore I would say that we should kick out the skilltree and pilot-cards, like you suggested, are not fitting to it.
Some of the skills also feelt very artifical. What has a pilot to do with the range of a laser or its heat? Do I lay my hand on it and its magicaly increases its range?
Put those skilltree values into the tech. Most of it is allready there with the different types of weapons anyway.
Add some stuff like different types of sensors, gyros and UAVs and strikes as equipment you outfit your mech with.
Theny you could have it all nice and clean building up one each other without feeling artificial.
Maybe have a mini upgrade game that lets you tinker around with your equipment to a certain degree. You buy the stock Large Laser and then go into a minigame, trying to increase the range for example. When you are successfull you get your increase, when you are less successfull you get a small increase and if you fail you have the range but build up more heat?
You could also have that bount to XP instead of a minigame so you can spend XP to increase values on a certain pice of equipment to bring up the stats of that one weapon. When you increase one aspect to much you can go over the red line but you will also have a drawback with it.
Again with the LL example, you can savely increase the range by 10m but you can also go up to 20m but then you create more heat (random values).
Maybe have salvage instead of XP to spend? Makeing the system even more grounded in the world.
The program would register who you have attacked, that persons loudout and when you shoot of an arm or torso you would get parts of whatever he had equiped inside of it.
For example lets say your target had an autocannon and a laser in its side torso that you just took out. At the end of the match you would receive 2 autocannon parts and 1 laser part.
Now you get back into your mechlab and see that you allready had 3 autocannon parts and now you have 5 what is finaly enough to upgrade that AC10s range.
I think a system like that could change the gameplay a lot. You have a more logical progression system that fits into the world of Battletech and in combat it would make sense for pilots to not just take out the enemy the fastest way but maybe try to take out specific parts first to get the salvage from it.
It also allows to have very specific upgrades to the taste, playstyle of a player.
Nesutizale, on 02 September 2019 - 01:52 AM, said:
I get where you are comming from a "technical" point of view. Yes that mechanic works for a lot of games and might work for MWO players who are allready familiar with the lore. For new players a Natasha Kerensky would just be a name or at best specific stats they like.
It should be the opposite. It is also meant to teach people who are new with the franchise by drip feeding them. A lot of Fire Emblem Heroes players would not have played the older games from the consoles. In fact many of those older games are in the collectible category and hasn't seen a remake.
The new player presents a wonderful opportunity for someone to experience the universe for the first time. Its his or her time for those "oohs" and "aahs" as they take the road to discover the universe. The way to do that is to drip feed the narrative and information, present it in a literary storytelling fashion with suspense, characterization and emotion. This can mean we should be hiring writers to write the scripts.
For players who already knows about Battletech, this needs to be an entirely new story so they can be off to a new road of rediscovery.
Quote
Sure the "gota catch them all" mania would still apply and surely be a way for PGI to make money of it.
Personaly its not something I would want, grinding and collecting where never something that keept me playing.
We should leave this as an option to those players who want to do this. I hate to say this but games do need their whaling sponsors and players want to gotta get them all, give them the opportunity.
Quote
Now one has to decide what MWO should put its focus on. Do we focus on player-skills or Stats-skills?
Personaly I think that MWO leans more towards player-skills while a tactical game like HBS Battletech would be a stats-skill game.
Therefore I would say that we should kick out the skilltree and pilot-cards, like you suggested, are not fitting to it.
Some of the skills also feelt very artifical. What has a pilot to do with the range of a laser or its heat? Do I lay my hand on it and its magicaly increases its range?
Put those skilltree values into the tech. Most of it is allready there with the different types of weapons anyway.
Add some stuff like different types of sensors, gyros and UAVs and strikes as equipment you outfit your mech with.
Theny you could have it all nice and clean building up one each other without feeling artificial.
Maybe have a mini upgrade game that lets you tinker around with your equipment to a certain degree. You buy the stock Large Laser and then go into a minigame, trying to increase the range for example. When you are successfull you get your increase, when you are less successfull you get a small increase and if you fail you have the range but build up more heat?
You could also have that bount to XP instead of a minigame so you can spend XP to increase values on a certain pice of equipment to bring up the stats of that one weapon. When you increase one aspect to much you can go over the red line but you will also have a drawback with it.
Again with the LL example, you can savely increase the range by 10m but you can also go up to 20m but then you create more heat (random values).
Maybe have salvage instead of XP to spend? Makeing the system even more grounded in the world.
The program would register who you have attacked, that persons loudout and when you shoot of an arm or torso you would get parts of whatever he had equiped inside of it.
For example lets say your target had an autocannon and a laser in its side torso that you just took out. At the end of the match you would receive 2 autocannon parts and 1 laser part.
Now you get back into your mechlab and see that you allready had 3 autocannon parts and now you have 5 what is finaly enough to upgrade that AC10s range.
I think a system like that could change the gameplay a lot. You have a more logical progression system that fits into the world of Battletech and in combat it would make sense for pilots to not just take out the enemy the fastest way but maybe try to take out specific parts first to get the salvage from it.
It also allows to have very specific upgrades to the taste, playstyle of a player.
The idea of introducing Pilots to a BT/MW game is because pilots as characters play an important part of the Battletech narrative, and indeed they are also a part of the previous MW games, the tabletops, the clix games and even HBS Battletech.
I have seen all sorts of weird senseless abilities given to pilots from different games (start with the Pilot cards on the Mechwarrior Dark Age/Age of Destruction clix games for example) but tuck that under creative license, and people should not question the technical possibility of it. Given that it happens all the time with so many games, this is something experienced players are jaded anyway and thinks its all okay.
If this franchise is all about robots and nothing but robots, it will become soulless. Even from the beginning of the age of robot animes, super robots are balanced by the human elements of their pilot-characters. What is Gundam without Char Aznable, for example?
There are plenty, plenty of characters in Battletech that can become alive once again through a lore-narrative format game.
It would also be neat to have characters talk to you, have their dialog dubbed, and if you bring them to your coop missions, they are able to converse with their unique characters. That to some degree was done in MW4 in its campaign mode. We just like to rebuild this experience again. Maybe MW5M could recreate this.
A lot of these things are all obvious out there, so I wonder if MW5M developers could see this. I don't mind them emulating the template of successful campaign-narrative driven games that can be continuously maintained and updated with new story arcs and content. The days that everything is about nothing but multiplayer PvP might be headed to an end, as fatigue sets in and players just want a good gaming and story experience.
What you are proposing is basicly a new game centered around the singleplayer idea and lots of it is hopefully in MW5 but I fear it will not be.
What I was talking about is how to get a bit more out of MWO from the core promise of beeing a skill based mech-arena-shooter. So I think we are talking a bit past each other.
When we talk about makeing a new, more story focused game, yes we can or better should do much of the stuff you mentioned.
About the abstract pilot abilities. I think there are three kinds of people. Those who take it as is, those who don't like it but keep quite and those who refuse it.
Sure its 2/3 majority of players that you can get away with as a designer but I think when its possible to have a system that is logical in its gameworld and give you whatever you seek on the game designing side you should definitly take the route.
For Battletech you could still have pilots without abstract abilities. For example reduced screenshake, better aim or when you have NPCs with you, you could have something like inspiration so that they fight better. Getting better contracts as a merc could also be a softskill of a pilot. I bet when you think about it you could find more skills that are fitting to what a person can do better that dosn't involve breaking the physics of your world.
You can also bind softskills into the narration of the story. Maybe that pilot knows some contacts where you go next so you have better intel on the next mission.
Just because people except abstract values/connections dosn't mean you shouldn't at least try to make your game mechanics and world building fit to each other.
and got smashed by an angry bird, so sad. On the other hand she was 80+ when that happend. Most people that age are most likely not even fit enough to take part in combat.
Having played the table top game and being in Technology, I know the difficulties of platform maintenance in a platform with deprecating features and license negotiations.... SHAME ON YOU.
You don't want to buy the game, don't. But don't whine when you are back to hand calculating hit boxes and a volley from a 100 ton mech firing from terrain over takes 5 fraking minutes to calculate.
I got my 150 bucks worth of play time, costing me pennies an hour over the last 6 years. If you were a closeted mech-aholic and spent thousands, that is on you. Learn from your mistakes. The fact that you can drop in to a 12v12 map and blow the crap out of each other using essentially the same table top rules and the MATH IS DONE FOR YOU, is amazing. You kids are just entitled whiners. Enjoy what you have when you have it.
I will buy MWM5 because its stand alone and a private sandbox you can mod/share makes for a hugely interesting game.
The fact that you can drop in to a 12v12 map and blow the crap out of each other using essentially the same table top rules and the MATH IS DONE FOR YOU, is amazing.
If all you want is automated Battletech, megamek is free. I'm not sure it supports 24 players, but it has, like, all the mechs.
3
Prototelis, on 19 August 2019 - 08:00 PM, said:
