117 replies to this topic

[Surn]

I O O percent KongLord, on 17 November 2020 - 04:29 PM, said:

Still trying to pitch an idea, that only PGI can do, to the community instead of PGI... Guess it's time to apply for a position and see what the response (or the lack of) is if they even care about stuff like this.

There is a proposal in this data which PGI can do for low cost and quick response.

There is another concern that I have which is related to this entire endeavor. What is the minimal burn rate or budget that PGI needs per month to make this game sustainable.

If they use a burn rate, then we need to give them upfront money and a trickle of monthly income. If they have a monthly "maintenance" cost, it would really help us understand what we as a community need to do to make this happen.

I am going to estimate, based on nothing but other projects in development and no understanding of the operational cost of PGI, that we need to provide at minimum $30,000 (usd) / month . That comes to a little under $10 per month for the core players. On other projects that would contract 4 devs and a project manager, but not in Vancouver, BC.

My experience is that a subscription is the lowest cost arraignment, because they can do financial planning. Otherwise, they may need 50-100% more to cover down months. Or worse, they might end up contacting out to developers who simply have a different work ethic.

My hunch is that if we got subscriptions together to cover the cost of even 1 developer per month, it would make a massive difference in the success of the entire game going forward.

Believe me when I say that developers work on inspiration. (and caffeine). It is the difference between a player and a bot, to put it in mechwarrior terms.


I know, as players, you do not want to be concerned by budgets. However, this is my point of view as both a player and an unrelated developer.

Edited by Surn, 18 November 2020 - 12:48 PM.

[Surn]

Finally, I will be closing this poll on Friday 11/20/2020. So, please encourage anyone that plays to put their two cents in, even if it is to bash me!

If you WANT to include our pilot name, just put it in one of the comment fields.

Edited by Surn, 18 November 2020 - 12:43 PM.

[PurplePuke]

LordNothing, on 13 November 2020 - 03:27 PM, said:

anything that lets me swap mechs after the map is selected like in faction play would be good. i think i would do a same weight class or same tonnage rule rather than single class. when you have a mech not suited to the map you usually end up waiting for something to happen and that is not fun.

perhaps have qp drop decks. one for each weight class. there is no respawn and you only get one mech, but if you drop with a medium, then on the vote screen the medium drop deck is displayed and you can pick one. the game might allow you to pick from more than one deck if you have purchased additional decks, so you could expand your options to 8, 12, and so on.

How would that work for the new players everybody hopes to retain? They have maybe only one or two mechs, or maybe they're playing trial mechs.

Would there be some kind of trial drop deck scenario?

It doesn't seem workable because that just adds more complexity and confusion to an already difficult-to-learn game.

[LordNothing]

PurplePuke, on 18 November 2020 - 02:17 PM, said:

How would that work for the new players everybody hopes to retain? They have maybe only one or two mechs, or maybe they're playing trial mechs.

Would there be some kind of trial drop deck scenario?

It doesn't seem workable because that just adds more complexity and confusion to an already difficult-to-learn game.

i think it would be like fp where you get your first deck free (in this case one for each weight class) and have to pay for more. new players would be limited to four mech options after the vote. whether those are trials or not doesn't really matter.

though i have been pushing for replacing trial mechs with full mechs that you earn through the cadet tree. i doubt pgi will actually do that, but its an idea. the trial mech concept made sense when the game was new but not any more.

Edited by LordNothing, 18 November 2020 - 04:12 PM.

[thievingmagpi]

Surn, on 17 November 2020 - 12:09 AM, said:

Experience:
Full Stack developer since 1995
MW Related Projects:

• The MechWarrior Registry: www.Mechreg.org (The first automated, massive multiplayer, resource based league for any game as far as I have seen). Required fast internet connection in 1996, custom database server, web server, thousands of hours of coding through 10 years. The league was NOT limited by game.
  
• Any Mechwarrior game could/can be played in the league due to it's design. So I had supported with development MW2, MW3, MW4, MC, MC2
  
• Mechreg.org included a player rating system that was eventually adopted in College basketball called RPI.It takes the most relevant outcomes of the match and ranks them. Allowing for a balanced system that rewards players for difficult schedules and difficult match circumstances. One important piece of this RANKED PERCENTAGE INDEX system is Strength of Schedule. Also, Opponent Strength of Schedule and Opponent Opponent's Strength of Schedule. This eliminates pug stomping and other statistical manipulations.
  
• Homeworld league was begun in 2004 and never completed due to the end of MW4 in 2005-2006
  
• Map Building, in preparation for Homeworld league which had 400,000+ different planet sectors to fight over, own and build upon, Myself and 2 other admin began creating maps. During this process I discovered exactly how to make maps at the same detail and feature level as the original Microsoft MW4 maps. Many of these maps became popular and mektek began having me refit some of their popular maps with the new techniques. Included in these maps is MR Pyramids Pro. In the end, I made dozens of new maps for every conceivable terrain and combat scenario. Many of the maps in MWO are similar to the maps and sector designs from homeworld.
  
• Ultimate Gamer: In 2000 I became a producer on a television show focused on gaming. It was short lived because it was started in San Diego and not Los Angeles.
  
• During Ultimate Gamer we had the first live televised MechWarrior Tournament that I am aware of.
  
• We also made the tournament live on the internet with a new technology called streaming. Many of you now use it. Again, it was the first live streamed tournament that I know of, and it was streaming Mechwarrior!
  
• 2003-2006 Automated MW4 server with integrated battles, bounties, bots using MW Monitor, my database server and my 3 gaming servers.

By 2005-2006, I creating a league for SFC3 which had a much easier server interface for automation and modding.





Around the time NGNG and MWLL came around, I had created maybe 40 maps, run servers, administrated a league for 10 years, hosted tournaments, made commercials and watched MW basically die. I supported NGNG at the beginning with some promotion, but moved to some other gaming communities to develop. I had considered joining the MWLL guys, but I needed to do grow in another direction, one that paid.

Since then, I have been creating and supporting companies that do various tech.

• Private Hosted Cloud servers
  
• Financial reporting
  
• Retirement Plan Software
  
• Mortgage Lending
  
• API integrations
  
• Data mining for machine learning
  
• Content Management systems
  
• Ambulance Transport software
  
• Many of the School districts on the East coast of the US run on a CMS that I develop.
  
• Blockchain security implementations
  
• Credit Card processing servers
  
• Streaming Bot software (Streamlabs OBS Chatbot)
  
• OBS Studio
  
• Obs-shaderfilter (shaders for OBS Studio)
  
• reshade.me (ingame shaders)
  
• a couple android apps

I work in many different programming languages and environments. Since I used to program in low level programming languages, simplified languages and development environments are quick for me to learn. It is like understanding Latin, Greek, Arabic and Chinese... I already understand the root logic of most other programming languages.





When we talk about a javascript library or a development environment that people have made for end users, you have to understand that I used to take a hex editor and decipher file formats with no documentation in order to make maps have running water or correct texturing. That was in a proprietary game engine with no documentation.

The technology in the game engine is no mystery, making maps and hosting gaming servers are old hat. Reading documentation and learning syntax is easy for me.

There are craftsman and there are tools. Creating and using new technology is my craft.

In development, lots of people jump on new technology as a differentiator. However, I was taught to program knowing that the languages are evolving. The languages and tools improve and become easier over time. They make me better, faster, and easier for other people to follow. New technology is not a differentiator to me, it is new tool that I enjoy learning.

So.... Nothing to do with MWO?

Surn, on 17 November 2020 - 12:09 AM, said:

Relevance to MWO:

Ah, here we go...

Surn, on 17 November 2020 - 12:09 AM, said:

MWO is not unique. It is another in a long line of Mechwarrior games that I have either developed for, integrated into my league or created ranking systems for to compare across games, or all of the above. Saying that I can't understand it, is like saying I wouldn't understand my 400th mech.

As an example, you may recall that I was one of the first people to put out information on integrating joysitcks in MW5.

I have personally done every step in the development of a game engine. I have built 3d engines, coded server logic like automated reporting, coded game logic like collision detection, created custom shaders, built the databases and written secure network coding. Most of these things are extrapolated in modern game engines. So, I am the guy who might build the Game Engine software, using the software is easy for me.

Ahh well. Never mind, still nothing to do with mwo.

Edited by thievingmagpi, 18 November 2020 - 05:41 PM.

[Kynesis]

KodiakGW, on 13 November 2020 - 09:48 AM, said:

Don't lump the mech designers and mech artists in with management. Any company that takes over the license would do well to employ the artists. Management, and to whom they listened, has always been the problem with this game.

I like a lot of the artwork, it deserves praise for being authentic while also incorporating insightful updates or changes where needed and great creative work. Nobody's irreplaceable though, I'm sure there are many skilled and well informed artists who'd contribute if they could. My comment in that regard was partly hyperbole because I have fairly strong feelings about how PGI conducts business.

[Kynesis]

Miss Greene, on 12 November 2020 - 10:18 PM, said:

You misinterpret the point of the survey, which is really to prove that his idea of providing an after-action battle report and playback capability in exchange for a subscription has merit and lots of support. Which is why he basically put that answer in there four times, split into piece-parts.

I'm fine with that, I read them as distinct features that were each worthy of consideration in their own contexts, which is why I went on to clarify my answer on that topic.
Having said all of this, I've noticed that a number of these items or approximations of them appear among Daeron's to-do for their attempt to bring MWO back from the brink (i'm sure many other people have voiced similar suggestions in the past & PGI's advisors likely came up with the same/similar ideas on their own as well).

[Surn]

FINAL TALLY

Basic Tier Support:

• 0: 26.5%
  
• <= $2.99: 20.5%
  
• 3.99: 4.0%
  
• 4.99: 19.5%
  
• <=6.99: 10.5%
  
• <=8.99: 2.5%
  
• <=10.99: 13.0%
  
• >11: 3.0%

Premium Tier Support

• 0: 26.5%
  
• <= $2.99: 14.5%
  
• <= 4.99: 10.5%
  
• <=6.99: 10.5%
  
• <=7.99: 9.0%
  
• <=9.99: 15.5%
  
• 10.99: 19.5%
  
• >11: 4.5%

Edited by Surn, 21 November 2020 - 03:46 PM.

[My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ]

Why isn't the zero option represented on the pie charts? Is it because you don't like them and don't want them to be represented?

[thievingmagpi]

So you created a loaded questionnaire that is worded in a way to support your goal, and only got middling results.

Lmao.

Absolutely BTFO.

[morosis]

no to all is my answer.

like many others have already expressed, i do not believe that these results are worth much, and certainly strike me as quite biased toward engineering a desired result.

my personal opinion is that i dont believe this is a worthwhile project at the moment. after having independent conversations with many highly invested players, i can say without bias that the overwhelming majority of the playerbase i have encountered is opposed to spending development resources here, and would not financially support it. it is not a bad feature, just not one that seems important relative to other priorities.

further to that, i also believe that given the number of serious issues that we are expressing a desire to solve, we can not afford to divert development resources away from any of the priority workstreams to spend them on this. perhaps, at a later time, something like this could be an addition to a presumably more healthy mwo, if we get there.

if qualifications make a difference in any of this, i work in tech, and my job is strategy operations and analytics.

Edited by morosis, 24 November 2020 - 02:35 AM.

[Meep Meep]

There needs to be two premium options. One geared for the newer player with lots of mechs to grind out and one for the established player who doesn't really need an xp and credit bonus anymore since they already have all the mechs they want unlocked and skilled out.

[Faithsfall]

I feel atm that it's all too little too late, all of the options PGI had available to them when there was a healthy playerbase has been squandered over the years.

In my opinion the best thing they could have done would have been bringing in a Battle Pass for around 8.99 per 2 months with F2P and paying lvl's, the F2P could have had c-bills a little MC a couple of cockpit items with let's say lvl 50 offering a brand new Battlemech. While the paying part could have had a seasonal exclusive battlehorn/ camo pattern etc etc etc and a choice of battlemech.

So to be clear the paying customer would have had both groups as you lvl'd whilst the F2P player would still have had some goodies.

There would have been no reason not to have had the new mech releases in the BP, you could have still purchased the whole bundle (there would have been no reason not to chuck in the hero in the pack), but as a F2P player and you played until lvl 50 you got one of these new shinies (it could have been the worst variant, but as a new player it would have kept player retention up) and the BP purchaser would have gotten the F2P one plus being able to choose which of the new mechs they wanted excluding a hero.

So those that purchased the mech pack would have gotten all variants plus the hero on day 1 of release.
BP purchase players would have to work towards top lvl to receive a specific new mech plus one of their choosing.
F2P players would have gotten a new specific mech at top lvl.

But unless PGI are willing to offer anything substantial in the near future this is all mute anyway.

[martian]

Faithsfall, on 24 November 2020 - 05:41 AM, said:

...
bringing in a Battle Pass ... offering a brand new Battlemech.
...

Russ Bullock admitted that people no longer buy 'Mech Packs.

Your Battle Pass is just a different name for a 'Mech Pack offer.

[Faithsfall]

martian, on 24 November 2020 - 07:01 AM, said:

Russ Bullock admitted that people no longer buy 'Mech Packs.

Your Battle Pass is just a different name for a 'Mech Pack offer.

I agree with you now that the playerbase is down to a tiny amount, same goes for a subscription model it's pointless as no matter what you do there just isn't enough ppl to bring in the money PGI are looking at. If these measures had been in place at least 2 years ago there would have been far more ppl playing and paying for things.

[VonBruinwald]

Faithsfall, on 24 November 2020 - 07:28 AM, said:

I agree with you now that the playerbase is down to a tiny amount, same goes for a subscription model it's pointless as no matter what you do there just isn't enough ppl to bring in the money PGI are looking at.

Which is ironic considering PGI are looking at a subscribe-to-play model.

[Sjorpha]

After action reports doesn't interest me.

But a proper replay feature would be pretty nice. Like they have in total war for example. So you can go back and watch your games with free camera and for example set up cinematic shots of highlights from your games and so on. Lots of games have it and it would suit MWO very well, especially for making youtube videos and such.

There is probably no way to make me pay any form of subscription fee for MWO though, I just don't see that happening. If I was PGI I would be very wary of pouring too much money into such an old game.

[martian]

Faithsfall, on 24 November 2020 - 07:28 AM, said:

.... no matter what you do there just isn't enough ppl to bring in the money PGI are looking at.

Yes.

Sjorpha, on 24 November 2020 - 08:05 PM, said:

After action reports doesn't interest me.

But a proper replay feature would be pretty nice. Like they have in total war for example. So you can go back and watch your games with free camera and for example set up cinematic shots of highlights from your games and so on. Lots of games have it and it would suit MWO very well, especially for making youtube videos and such.

There is probably no way to make me pay any form of subscription fee for MWO though, I just don't see that happening. If I was PGI I would be very wary of pouring too much money into such an old game.

I would not pay for a replay feature. Watching my team being farmed by a premade group for the fifth time in a row while PUGs are wandering alone around the map because they thought it's a good idea? I would not be interested in watching it again for free, much less for paying for it.