265 replies to this topic

[LordNothing]

Void Angel, on 21 June 2024 - 05:13 PM, said:

Clans is coming out soon. =) I'm looking forward to it.

not the game im looking for. the one i want has pvp. post clans mechwarrior game.

Edited by LordNothing, 21 June 2024 - 05:20 PM.

[Void Angel]

That's true; honestly I wouldn't be against another free-to-play, so long as it's done right - League of Legends is free to play, and I quit that because of the players, not the game. That said, there's something to be said for just buying a game and being able to do PvP as part of that instead of its own thing (with the resultant activity requirements in order to buy 'mechs and etc.)

[Ignatius Audene]

LordNothing, on 21 June 2024 - 05:19 PM, said:

not the game im looking for. the one i want has pvp. post clans mechwarrior game.

That's not reasonable with current server and programming pricing. How long do U expect dev time for new content/ fixes and servers running for one time 50 bucks investment?

Edited by Ignatius Audene, 22 June 2024 - 01:03 AM.

[LordNothing]

Ignatius Audene, on 22 June 2024 - 01:03 AM, said:

That's not reasonable with current server and programming pricing. How long do U expect dev time for new content/ fixes and servers running for one time 50 bucks investment?

that all depends on whether or not you allow players to run their own servers.

ok the highest player count logged on jarls, ever (and mind you this is old because jarls didnt start in lockstep with the game) is 43k. thats 2 million. you can make that 3 mil if you charge 70. with decentralized servers and reusing a ton of assets from 3 games, and code commonality with 2 of them. and if you eject the server costs (just need server browser lists and you can host those servers in house). i am not opposed to dlc and cosmetics funding the game forward from the initial drop. and perhaps server registration fees can provide an additional source of revenue.

that said its still going to be an arena shooter. dont go down the path of promising more than you can deliver eg community warfare/faction play. keep it simple stupid. you dont need to outdo anything, you just have to replace an aging and broken bit of code.

Edited by LordNothing, 22 June 2024 - 05:59 AM.

[East Indy]

LordNothing, on 22 June 2024 - 05:40 AM, said:

that said its still going to be an arena shooter. dont go down the path of promising more than you can deliver eg community warfare/faction play. keep it simple stupid.

The Star Citizen "anything is possible" era of freewheeling crowdfunding seems like a lifetime ago.

But of course, a well-designed, well-balanced, fun arena shooter would keep a lot of players engaged and spending money.

People love match events. They love in-universe touches and feeling like a part of the world. So much of the basics of the game can be styled and put into fictional context, and players will dig it as thematic.

[pattonesque]

the Black Knight is actually pretty strong, especially the Red Reaper II

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Void Angel, on 21 June 2024 - 05:25 PM, said:

That's true; honestly I wouldn't be against another free-to-play, so long as it's done right - League of Legends is free to play, and I quit that because of the players, not the game. That said, there's something to be said for just buying a game and being able to do PvP as part of that instead of its own thing (with the resultant activity requirements in order to buy 'mechs and etc.)

At this point I'd say the Valve route of selling the game up front, and then converting to F2P after sales have pretty much dropped off to drive up the user base is probably the best path. That said, Valve also created micro-transactions for both before or with them converting to F2P for both games (TF2 and Counterstrike). However you have to do it smartly and NOT how Activision Blizzard handled Overwatch.

East Indy, on 22 June 2024 - 06:32 AM, said:

But of course, a well-designed, well-balanced, fun arena shooter would keep a lot of players engaged and spending money.

People love match events. They love in-universe touches and feeling like a part of the world. So much of the basics of the game can be styled and put into fictional context, and players will dig it as thematic.

Overwatch and TF2 are honestly some of the best examples of this, granted Overwatch also bungled so many other things that it's easy to overlook the things they did well (at least in the early days).

[Void Angel]

pattonesque, on 28 June 2024 - 07:47 AM, said:

the Black Knight is actually pretty strong, especially the Red Reaper II

Don't confuse him with facts - it vexes him. He's just one of the logic-immune partisans for a particular hobby horse - speaking of "inconsistent crowds of lunatic hypocrites." Like the Clan partisans, you have to accept that people who say the same thing no matter what happens - whether it's "Clans are weak" from day one on, or ignoring entire weapon classes introduced specifically to help Mediums and Heavies - well, they're not going to be amenable to reasonable discourse. That's why his entire post is basically insulting everyone who disagrees and poisoning the well against opposing viewpoints (poorly, but alas, that's par for the course.)

Edited by Void Angel, 28 June 2024 - 11:53 AM.

[feeWAIVER]

I'd pay box price + regular DLCs for an MWO2, no problem. I'm sure a lot of people would.

[foamyesque]

pattonesque, on 28 June 2024 - 07:47 AM, said:

the Black Knight is actually pretty strong, especially the Red Reaper II

Excuse me?

First off, the Black Knight's geo was so bad they had to patch it, and while it's better now, it's still not great. And secondly, the RRII being especially good... does not match with my experiences. It isn't armour that wins fights, generally, and the RRII commits an awful lot of tonnage to that shield. Same problem the Onyx has, and it's worse for the Reaper because it's a bigger, slower target.

[feeWAIVER]

RRII is good in 2v2 event Queues, and stuff like that.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

feeWAIVER, on 28 June 2024 - 11:14 AM, said:

I'd pay box price + regular DLCs for an MWO2, no problem. I'm sure a lot of people would.

As long as the DLC is handled more like the MW4 "mech packs" and not how the old expansions were handled, should be fine (ie you aren't splitting the playerbase, which is partly why Counterstrike killed CSGO when they released CS2 as they experienced similar problems in prior migrations). It is funny that back in the day, $15 for mech packs was seen as absurd, and now even if you account for inflation that was a good deal compared to modern games or even MWO.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 28 June 2024 - 12:27 PM.

[pattonesque]

foamyesque, on 28 June 2024 - 11:41 AM, said:

Excuse me?

First off, the Black Knight's geo was so bad they had to patch it, and while it's better now, it's still not great. And secondly, the RRII being especially good... does not match with my experiences. It isn't armour that wins fights, generally, and the RRII commits an awful lot of tonnage to that shield. Same problem the Onyx has, and it's worse for the Reaper because it's a bigger, slower target.

nah RR2 is legit. if you twist correctly you can tank a whole other mech's worth of damage onto that shield, and even with the tonnage investment you can fit a quality brawl loadout on it.

[Void Angel]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 28 June 2024 - 12:25 PM, said:

As long as the DLC is handled more like the MW4 "mech packs" and not how the old expansions were handled, should be fine (ie you aren't splitting the playerbase, which is partly why Counterstrike killed CSGO when they released CS2 as they experienced similar problems in prior migrations). It is funny that back in the day, $15 for mech packs was seen as absurd, and now even if you account for inflation that was a good deal compared to modern games or even MWO.

People's mileage will always vary; a lot of the furor I saw over 'mech packs was stoked by the pofessionally angry people who got MWO banned as a topic on the Star Citizen forums - but other people just worried that they were being barred from power behind a paywall. That... really wasn't the case, and certainly wasn't intended, as so many mechpacks (or Hero 'mechs) were lackluster performers; but "if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences." Out of that worry (inaccurate or not,) people found complaints about "absurd" 'mech costs - of less than a night out at the movies - to be compelling. Meanwhile, I'm a single adult with an income, and I still don't regret the $80 Overlord pack that I bought - I got so much use and enjoyment out of those 'mechs that I still think it's some of the best money I ever spent for entertainment.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

I mean if we are being honest, video game prices are cheaper than they honestly should be despite larger teams and scale of games. If they kept up for inflation a $50 game in 1995 should be roughly $120 in 2025 (if I did math right, and assuming a consistent 3% rate of inflation) which would probably explain the issue with selling outrageously priced DLCs, "Ultimate editions", etc. That said, the mech packs were meh on pricing and I'm still not a huge fan of mechs being your main income source given like you mentioned they are either reliant on nostalgia-baiting or selling power which is not great.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 30 June 2024 - 09:20 AM.

[Void Angel]

$102.97 - BLS did the math for me. =D Of course, that's the consumer price index, which aggregates things in... interesting ways, sometimes - and includes lots of necessities. Games being luxury purchases, people's marginal propensity to spend will be lower, putting downward pressure on pricing. Still, it's not surprising we're seeing game prices rise - given how much time and labor it takes to make a modern AAA, we're probably overdue.

[Void Angel]

And now that I think about it, 'mech bays and packs weren't intended to be endgame, originally - that was faction warfare, of course. So I wonder if they were kind of thinking about monetizing that somehow, or at least keeping people engaged. Colors and patterns are a more standard way to monetize cosmetics; but those are kind of buried in the MechLab, and the actual 'mech architecture is more distinctive. Then you have bolt-ons, which are cool (I love my glowing Atlas eyes,) but not really to everyone's taste.

Hrm... that gives me an idea.

[Gasboy]

Void Angel, on 30 June 2024 - 01:31 PM, said:

And now that I think about it, 'mech bays and packs weren't intended to be endgame, originally - that was faction warfare, of course. So I wonder if they were kind of thinking about monetizing that somehow, or at least keeping people engaged. Colors and patterns are a more standard way to monetize cosmetics; but those are kind of buried in the MechLab, and the actual 'mech architecture is more distinctive. Then you have bolt-ons, which are cool (I love my glowing Atlas eyes,) but not really to everyone's taste.

Hrm... that gives me an idea.

In what way are you seeing them monetize fp? It could be interesting and if it made them bank, they'd have incentive to keep it fresh.

[Void Angel]

Gasboy, on 30 June 2024 - 03:28 PM, said:

In what way are you seeing them monetize fp? It could be interesting and if it made them bank, they'd have incentive to keep it fresh.

I really don't see a way to monetize FP as implemented, but I remember that Faction warfare was delayed for a long time. Maybe they never had a plan and thought their existing monetization would work so long as the game remained popular, or maybe they scrapped their original plan for some reason.

Most of the ways to monetize a strategic overgame like FW was intended to be would involve pay-to-win predatory monetization akin to phone games... But you could still redesign the interface to be more personalized, e.g. an "advisor" in the interface that you could customize, or a little virtual 'mech figurine to represent your unit on the battle map. That's going to be pretty limited per person, though, and I don't think they have the engineering assets budgeted to do any of it. All in all, I don't think you're going to see a monetization that yields sufficient revenue to justify implementation costs - not without damaging the game (which is likely why there is no monetization now.)

Making FP more engaging and accessible for the general player base would still help revenue, though - because if players are more engaged, the population will grow and there'll be more people to buy something every so often. But I think that ship sailed years ago. What we need eventually is an MWO2, because the costs to dig through the old code and enact workable changes isn't worth the probable increase in revenue.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

FYI we won't ever get an MWO2, per a recent NGNG podcast with Russ, apparently the future of PvP Mechwarrior was talked about it's highly unlikely to ever see a standalone PvP Mechwarrior due to the likely long roadway to profit and it won't be after MW5 Clans if they did decide to make one. That and the MWO mechlab will never make a return.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 30 June 2024 - 09:52 PM.