88 replies to this topic

[InnerSphereNews]

Greetings, MechWarriors!

My apologies for the Monday Update getting delayed to a Tuesday Update this week. Lots going on, but next week I will be back on schedule!

For those that haven't heard, last week Piranha Games was acquired by EG7. Yesterday, Russ, Matt and myself recorded a Dev Vlog that covers what that means for PGI, MW5, and of course MWO. Be sure to check that out HERE:

If you don't have time to watch that now, but are wondering how this will affect MWO, here's the answer from our recent ANNOUNCEMENT:

"And finally, how will this decision affect MechWarrior Online? It won't! There will be no impact on our MechWarrior Online initiatives, and in fact, this will likely benefit MWO in the long run by bringing more eyes to our multiplayer PvP MechWarrior experience. By the release of MW5 in Spring 2021, we should be well on our way towards implementing significant updates to MWO, including exciting improvements to the new player experience, making sure we’re ready for new players."

Speaking of the new player experience, I also have some good news on that front. Within the next two weeks, any new accounts created will be starting at tier 5. This is just the first of many changes to come starting in the new year.

December is going to be an exciting month for MWO, with holiday events and sales, and the final preparation for launching the MWO initiative in January. Additionally, I'll be starting my Dev Hunt events back up this month, so look for my TWEETS announcing that I'm out there so you can hunt me, find me, and kill me for your very own Dev Kill Medallion and more! I'll also be supporting your favorite MWO streamers throughout December with giveaways, so stop by TWITCH whenever you can for some 'Mech on 'Mech action, and support these amazing creators!

Matt and I will be appearing on the NGNG podcast this Wednesday to discuss MWO and what will be happening in December to prepare for the new initiative beginning in January.

We are also scheduling an MWO Townhall broadcast for Friday, December 11th, so look for that official announcement coming this week along with a thread for you to submit your questions for Russ and the team.

The topical discussions on the MWO forums are going great, keep up the excellent feedback! Due to the events of last week, I didn't get to auditing the outline, so I will be tackling that this week (and probably into the weekend).

Happy Holidays everyone and I'll see you on the battlefield,

Daeron "Bombadil" Katz

[Magic Pain Glove]

B ö r k

[Will9761]

THIRD!

[byebye360]

In what way are you competing with cp2077 a completely different type of game, its like saying everything when doom released should have changed its release date for it.

[Redacted]

[Gagis]

byebye360, on 01 December 2020 - 01:07 PM, said:

In what way are you competing with cp2077 a completely different type of game, its like saying everything when doom released should have changed its release date for it.
[Redacted]

Doom and CP2077 are so huge that a lot of games do change their schedules for them.

Hells, Path of Exile is adjusting their expansion release dates to accomodate that. Its nowhere near the same genre but its just too big to ignore.

[Rogard]

Super excited for more content for MW5 and MWO as these games are amazing!

[Jungle Plague]

Okay - so I am teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeentatively excited.

Additional Content (above and beyond HotIS) for MW5 is nice - I like that for sure.

It still feels a little... anemic on the MW:O front... in terms of how they are actively pursuing it. But at least it feels like there might be a little bit more of a plan.

[Javin]

I would be impressed if you guys did anything for MWO. Just new maps would make me happy.

[LordNothing]

id be happy if they added a light rifle. it wouldnt do anything but it would be new content.

Edited by LordNothing, 01 December 2020 - 02:15 PM.

[C337Skymaster]

Daeron,

I had a chance to talk to an old friend of mine the other day, whose husband tried MWO "for all of 10 minutes, a few years ago", and went back to World of Tanks. When I asked for his impression of MWO, this was his response (through her):

"It did not feel friendly to new players and I didn't feel compelled to play because I felt like it expected me to know everything," and "It's kind of similar to WOT but WOT has a lot less customization of your mechs and the gameplay is a bit slower paced and you're just paying attention to fewer things, you don't have overheating or anything you just have your gun"

I feel as though it would be worthwhile for MWO to reconsider adding Tanks, at the very least, as playable units. Tanks would be stock-mode only, and one of the TT rules for Tanks is that they carry enough heat sinks to handle their full heat load. Thus, in theory, a tank should never overheat. With regards to Flamers, they can be coded to deal armor/structural damage, or cause ammo explosions, or something (crit damage), kinda like Machine Guns, maybe, but leave the Tank experience simplified to just moving, pointing, and shooting. If MWLL can do it, there's no reason MWO can't.

As far as "expecting you to know everything", in retrospect, I think he's right. I came to MWO straight off of 8 years of non-stop MW2/MW3/MW4 on constant repeat, so I was intimately familiar with the different weapon and 'mech types, and it was a very small learning curve to adapt to their particular implementation in MWO, similar to the previous variations from title to title.

I honestly think most of the MechWarrior fans who got hooked by the computer games started with MW2: 31st Century Combat, and they were hooked so easily due to the extremely in-depth tutorial missions that were structured to simulate Basic Military Training, right down to the Drill Sargent that couldn't care less if you died in a ditch, as long as you didn't get him shot in the process. The guy in MWO's training scenario sounds like he's smiling too much... Each successive game has had less and less training ahead of the main game, often with more and more simple tutorial built into the first few campaign missions. MW2 had 6 or 7 tutorials, MW3 had 4 or so, and MW4 only had a single one.

I'd love to see the audio from the MW2 tutorials ripped and overlaid on a remastered MWO tutorial, obviously with the relevant key commands dubbed over, hopefully by a decent voice actor who can do a good job of mimicking the original Drill Instructor.

[Pz_DC]

Two single things that made all that waiting time not a waste: newbies going to t5 and "kill a dev" return. Next small step for a great score - more tiers and more separation to make t1 rly different from t3.

[Pz_DC]

C337Skymaster, on 01 December 2020 - 02:25 PM, said:

"It did not feel friendly to new players and I didn't feel compelled to play because I felt like it expected me to know everything," and "It's kind of similar to WOT but WOT has a lot less customization of your mechs and the gameplay is a bit slower paced and you're just paying attention to fewer things, you don't have overheating or anything you just have your gun"

Hope to newer see those in MWO - that's why I left WoT coz all those players are brainless and didn't even try to think and find info about hot to play a game they have launched! Yes, some tutorial would be good, but tutorial should be like a prologue for long way into but not a "how to run a PC" instruction.
P.S. In MechWarrior game You NEED to know ALL about ANY weapons to play it and got your fun. If You remove that request it will not be MechWarrior game! Bad thing is - devs need new money, and easy way to get it - get new players. Same time, with all those "newbie friendly" changes old players will leave coz "it's not that old hardcore MWO, it's more casual, no fun for me now". Hard to balance, but IMHO it's need to be cleared - MechWarrior game is ALLWAYS a game with hard-to-enter state! Look, it's 7 (SEVEN!!!) years passed form MWO release and still in t1 are players who's don't know where enemy will be! 99% of all games are predictable if we will look where and when enemy are going and still! Make a game for those who didn't learn in 7 years or refuse to learn at start is "a bit" a mistake...

Edited by Pz_DC, 01 December 2020 - 02:55 PM.

[Daeron Katz]

Jungle Plague, on 01 December 2020 - 01:24 PM, said:

Okay - so I am teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeentatively excited.

Additional Content (above and beyond HotIS) for MW5 is nice - I like that for sure.

It still feels a little... anemic on the MW:O front... in terms of how they are actively pursuing it. But at least it feels like there might be a little bit more of a plan.

I appreciate your concern, and I hope we can successfully bring some improvements and renewed interest to MWO in 2021.

Javin, on 01 December 2020 - 02:12 PM, said:

I would be impressed if you guys did anything for MWO. Just new maps would make me happy.

I hope we make you very happy in 2021.

[Z Paradox]

at least you did talk of MWO in last ~7-8 min... we see you care for it, this was forum for MW5 after all

Edited by Z Paradox, 01 December 2020 - 04:58 PM.

[CFC Conky]

Pz_DC, on 01 December 2020 - 02:36 PM, said:

... newbies going to t5 ...

An improvement, though looking back at my own experience, when they combined the queues, then reset PSRs I went from T2 to low T5. I'm clawing my way back up and during the whole time I've been dropping against the same high-skill players and/or groups with the same frequency regardless of my own Tier.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

[Daeron Katz]

Pz_DC, on 01 December 2020 - 02:36 PM, said:

Two single things that made all that waiting time not a waste: newbies going to t5 and "kill a dev" return. Next small step for a great score - more tiers and more separation to make t1 rly different from t3.

See you on the battlefield!

[Voice of Kerensky]

Daeron, I greet you!
I'm not sure if you continue to track people's comments in the command chair section on forum.
I left a comment on the maps discussion thread, but that topic is already quite large, so I don't know if you have read it to the end.
If it's not too late, please pay attention to the message I left there:
https://mwomercs.com...ost__p__6362386

P.S. Thank you for continuing to keep us informed of these developments.

[Bud Crue]

That last 10 minutes or so...

...say "plan" one more time mother f...

[hardenum]

C337Skymaster, on 01 December 2020 - 02:25 PM, said:

"It did not feel friendly to new players and I didn't feel compelled to play because I felt like it expected me to know everything," and "It's kind of similar to WOT but WOT has a lot less customization of your mechs and the gameplay is a bit slower paced and you're just paying attention to fewer things, you don't have overheating or anything you just have your gun"

Compelled to play? what does that even mean?

[AnAnachronismAlive]

Lather, rinse and repeat: we need to grant, gather and structure as much sophisticated feedback as possible - WITHOUT limiting ourselves to the consensus points necessarily. This will help the community to measure how earnest PGIs proclamations of MWO having a future are.

All pointless without a solid and comprehensive overview of (more or less realistic) proposals we can check against whatever kind of (transparent?!) roadmap including (meaningful?!) milestones PGI is going to offer.