5 replies to this topic

[Meep Meep]

So since the recent dev videos have sparked some measure of interest in the community over the near and far term future of the game and generated various topics lets explore this avenue a bit more closely.

As the results of the spending money on mwo thread have shown people seem to be generally willing to part with money on the game even largish amounts but trust has been broken a bit by past mistakes. Sadly those past mistakes preclude pgi realistically getting any up front funding for major projects unless those projects have a ~very~ high chance of a return on investment.

What does this mean for the game? It means no more sweeping changes like solaris ever again because there will be no one interested in footing the risk. So its looking more and more that we the players will have to step up and help out if we want to see the game prosper and one tried and true method is crowd sourcing.

Just look at star citizen to see how much money that can generate for a niche game if its properly hyped.

I'd personally need a detailed and comprehensive project outline and timetable with both pgi and the new owners chiming in along with very good rewards for participating like a custom camo set of mechs fully skilled with all bolt ons and a warhorn of your choice with special 'founder' tags and titles etc so we can brag in game about it. Treat us like proper investors and I think plenty would be interested in dropping some cash.

So the question would be if pgi was to do crowd sourcing for a major gameplay project what assurances would they have to give and what rewards for backing them with your money would you require to invest in the future of MWO?

[Rondoe]

They probably can't accept crowd sourcing funds legally.

Another game I play where the studio is owned by EG7 said as much when the fans for it wanted to do the same thing.

The studio claimed they wouldn't legally be able to accept/use crowd sourced funds because of all kinds of (legal jargon)

[Meep Meep]

Hrmm given how prevalent it is even on steam that had to be some sort of dodge. There is probably some truth to legal responsibility but that's only if they take the money and run. It's still a very popular way to fund games even if there have been some high profile scams.

If its the terminology then call it 'early access' or some such. You are basically doing the same as crowd sourcing with that model.

[sycocys]

Early access is essentially the same thing now.

For me what I'd need to see -
-One client (launcher for all the games) - preferably with shared assets in the installs. Whether it be unreal5 or they are different enough to require some core coding separation, they need to make their business model bring the player base together instead of splitting it up.
Someone asked about avatars and a live instance lobby - personally a decent chat lobby system is fine by me, but if it makes enough of a better experience for those players I'm not opposed. Not like it would be super resource heavy, and either would encourage/facilitate more players to get into the coop games and teams for pvp.
Create a free "demo" type limited mode for the single player games. Allow it to expand up to the fuller mech customization and you will mostly solve this NPE dilemma, and actually having a small free mode to allow people to try the game so they might choose to buy one or all of them/dlcs and other store items.

-Actual modes of play that are different from full team skirmish, objectives that actually are the focus. Whether that be adopting a bunch of what they have going on in MW5 or making new stuff or both there just has to be some actual variety.

-Campaign Warfare that is actually campaigns between teams that you play (ie, not meta map focused). Multi match and shouldn't be a huge issue (with MW5 in mind) to make branching push-pull progress through them. This would actually be interesting, might actually get them some interest in streaming and their hard on for e-sports. Let some teams line up against each other and wage some small wars, or some big wars, or some month long wars.

-Salvage. Even if its just parts to build items, mechs and whatever. It's just far more interesting than c-bills and xp. Could work very well with yaml's upgrade and build a mech system. More you play the more you can build up parts/get a free mech/engine and so on.

-Zero sum, or close to it, skill tree. As it's always been here it's just a mechanic that creates a major imbalance and without any purpose behind it. The slot idea in MW5 was good, but there should be offsets to the improvements so its not a system that is imbalanced against "unskilled" mechs or newer players.

-Less quirks, more functional balance even if it means breaking away from TT rules. Clan gear is a good example, just work to balance the tech better even if it isn't the spec that TT has.

-Allow players to design maps/mechs/modes/campaigns/maps/patterns and have a way to get them into a rotation/test server for approval and inclusion in the official game. The tools are there, a bunch of players are clearly willing to do the work for you, why wouldn't you spend the little bit of resources and time to make your game that much better?

-Not a major sticking point, but it just doesn't make sense to make players buy everything again, just transfer the mechs over. The sales from them if you kept this game would only be from new packs either way so don't lose those players over something foolish.

-Expand the mechlab and parts. Yaml's lab is better other than removing sized hardpoint limitations.

-- Just a personal interest, I'd like to see them (with using a unified launcher) integrate the games as far as sales/store goes. Let people take their purchase mechs from game to game with some sort of reasonable MC cost. Make unique to find salvage/patterns/bolt ons/heroes in each game with a reasonable fee to make them universally usable - maybe with game specific events and some of the single player dlc, just some stuff to shift away from mech packs as being the only selling device.

I'm not saying don't make more mech packs, people seem to like them, just do something more and different than JUST mech packs. A lot of people don't want to/have the time to farm c-bills, selling the same equipment at small mc costs for those players would be a good use of the store and earned/purchased MC. Letting them transfer or open access to use mechs/patterns and such for reasonable costs (as well as having things at least start exclusive to one one game) just broadens the scope of the store/sales.

I'd also still like an option to mark my own mechs heroes. Especially in a pvp game, having your xp/currency boosted mechs be ones most people don't want to play is just not a great call. The unique pattern is cool and all, but if you are a player grinding currency you want to do it in the mechs you enjoy.

Those are my big ticket wants/needs to buy in again. Preferably not an epic exclusive, but I'd consider it if they had an option to transfer it to gog/steam.

[Meep Meep]

Thanks thats the feedback I was looking for.

[Saved By The Bell]

First you need ideas for real Faction Play in new game. Not even money.

I looked videos, Faction Play is terrible.