16 replies to this topic

[simon1812]

just curious , will this game still ...be a thing into 2026? is 2025 it's last year? thinking about this makes me hesitant to spend more money, so I'm asking.

Edited by simon1812, 13 February 2025 - 09:00 AM.

[LordNothing]

a roadmap sure would help the situation.

[1453 R]

The company has promised, in This Community Post, to mostly do the stuff we're used to. Various sales, monthly Cauldron tweaks, new Legends sniffing at various gimmicks, new 'Mechs and such when and as Piranha can manage, with the admission that the staffing reduction will likely cause slippage.

Reading between the lines? MWO will be kept running for as long as it continues to stay in the black and make money, which it currently does due to the popularity of Legend packs. They've finally hit on a marketing/sales model that seems relatively stable so long as they don't throw out too many stinker Legends, so we'll continue to see borderline-P2W 'Mechs introduced via the Legend system basically for as long as people are buying them. The game is one step up from Maintenance Mode, but it has been for years now and they keep finding ways to occasionally surprise us, a'la the Fire Moth coming next week after most of a decade of "we can't do this, it'll break hitreg." I don't foresee the game closing down any time soon, but that specter will always loom over a niche freemium title like MWO, so buy with caution. And/or acknowledge that your investment can go un in smoke at any given time.

[LordNothing]

they only really talked about the usual stuff and stuff we already knew about, which is a problem imho. not knowing if the game is going to be here next year is making me double think my purchases. had you offered me a bane or a firemoth 5 years ago, id have blown sailors to buy them. now, id take that money to the weed shop.

what would kill the game is if we had a long string of patch neglect like they did last time we had a major slump. the cauldron is at least padding it out, along with legends. if that keeps the numbers up, good.

Edited by LordNothing, 13 February 2025 - 11:29 AM.

[pbiggz]

To add to what others have said, as you can see, we can infer from what little PGI has told us, but, nobody really knows. I expect not even PGI.

If the game goes down in the next year, I think it will be regarded has having been a success. Perhaps a modest one, but its outlived most of the early 20teens freemium games and continues to have a stable population, if a little small. To put it in perspective a different way though; Mechwarrior 3 was 12 years old when closed beta first started up in 2011. MWO is now 14 years old. I dont think its wrong to say its time to make new space in the market for something, and with the AAA market finally imploding, who knows, maybe it'll be possible.

[Meep Meep]

The short answer is that as long as the game is making more money than it costs to operate with a bit of profit left over then it will continue to run since this is EG7's specialty in picking up niche games and stretching out their lives. Each game might not make much money but in total they make a decent pile. Since servers are cheap and mwo isn't taking up a huge amount of them or even bandwidth I can see it going for at least a few more years. Or at least until a viable mech based pvp game comes along.

[Lanzman]

PGI could always open source the game once they themselves are done with it. >>helpless laughter<<

[Hagen Zwosta]

With all the triple A studios not really releasing games that people actually want to play...I imagine MWO2 could be quite a thing.
I would certainly be into that. A lot.

[Lanzman]

Yes. Imagine MWO but built on a modern engine, with a bunch of features we've long wanted but never had, like destructible environments and inverse kinematics and whatnot. Maybe add an Aerospace Fighter mode if you'd rather fly than stomp. Even add Elementals and ProtoMechs. Selectable team sizes from lance to company or star to cluster. More maps. Bigger maps so that scouting was actually a Thing. Ah yes.

[Meep Meep]

With the lackluster sales and reception of mw5 clans and the silly no one asked for it ffa 'pvp' dlc pgi just might have to turn back to its mwo roots if they want to survive as a studio. Oddly enough them faceplanting with clans might be the impetus needed to contemplate an mwo2 or at least some sort of follow up mech pvp game. They have a built in hard core base to populate it and if its flashy enough for popular streamers to try and show to their audiences it could boom on population. Thats something I see a lot of now in that its not advertising or ces show booths or fancy social media initiatives that get a random game into popularity its being featured by a popular streamer.

[Bud Crue]

In regard to the OP and the idea of being fearful of spending money on a game that might not be around in a year, I guess I think of the typical $15-20 range, which is the price range for the more recent mechs, to be akin to treating myself to lunch at a restaurant. Yeah its an expense, yeah there are probably better things I could waste money on, but I'm hungry now and its something I want in the moment; I don't worry if the restaurant will be around in a year.

As to what the future might hold for PGI and MWO, post MW5. I suspect if there is ever an MWO2 it would have to abandon much of the TT elements and lore to an extent that many of the original player base (Founders, etc.) would find abhorrent in order to have a business model that would attract a broad player base. I'm not sure even Russ et al. would be willing to make a go of that, and if they aren't, I fear no one else will either.

[w0qj]

Willing to be founder again for MWO2!

But I'm actually Battletech lore/TT ignorant; have no problems with it being a Battletech-themed game instead!

~Both Piranha and Microsoft need to do proper promotion of MWO2.
https://blogs.micros...vision-blizzard

[SafeScanner]

Did Clans do that poorly? i never followed it because my experience with MW5.

w0qj, on 15 February 2025 - 06:47 PM, said:

Willing to be founder again for MWO2!

But I'm actually Battletech lore/TT ignorant; have no problems with it being a Battletech-themed game instead!

~Both Piranha and Microsoft need to do proper promotion of MWO2.
https://blogs.micros...vision-blizzard

'mwo rebooted'

that said ill put money down even if it just keeps the server online for another month

Edited by SafeScanner, 15 February 2025 - 07:29 PM.

[Centauri78]

w0qj, on 15 February 2025 - 06:47 PM, said:

Willing to be founder again for MWO2!

But I'm actually Battletech lore/TT ignorant; have no problems with it being a Battletech-themed game instead!

~Both Piranha and Microsoft need to do proper promotion of MWO2.
https://blogs.micros...vision-blizzard

BattleTech is the tabletop wargame. MechWarrior is the license for the first person Mech games based on BattleTech.
Hare Brained Schemes released a fantastic game based on BattleTech in 2018. It's an isometric view, turn based strategy game and does a great job of introducing the lore of the universe without having to read any of the many dozens of BattleTech novels.

I think MechWarrior Online 2 could get away from some of the BattleTech lore and still be a successful Mech combat game, especially if they advance the timeline, which would also open up many new technological options. But as the MechWarrior license has BattleTech in its DNA, some kind of lore would still have to be attached to the game, particularly for Faction Warfare, and for Hero Mechs, since they are based on the personal Mechs of prominent MechWarriors in the BattleTech Universe.

[sycocys]

I wouldn't probably spend hundreds of dollars on mechpacks, well maybe unless they wise up and have a big sale on older content - then it "might" be worth chucking some money their way.

Personally outside of maybe a 20 buck pack that includes some new hunchback variants I won't spend any more money on this game unless it is explicitly stated that the majority of that money will be going into development of MWO2 -AND- they have some sort of actual plan that leads to a reasonable point of completion in place for it.

[Hawk819]

I hope we get the Hel aka Loki II.

[Lanzman]

Centauri78, on 15 February 2025 - 08:27 PM, said:

BattleTech is the tabletop wargame. MechWarrior is the license for the first person Mech games based on BattleTech.
Hare Brained Schemes released a fantastic game based on BattleTech in 2018. It's an isometric view, turn based strategy game and does a great job of introducing the lore of the universe without having to read any of the many dozens of BattleTech novels.

I think MechWarrior Online 2 could get away from some of the BattleTech lore and still be a successful Mech combat game, especially if they advance the timeline, which would also open up many new technological options. But as the MechWarrior license has BattleTech in its DNA, some kind of lore would still have to be attached to the game, particularly for Faction Warfare, and for Hero Mechs, since they are based on the personal Mechs of prominent MechWarriors in the BattleTech Universe.

Lorewise I just need the mechs to look like what they're supposed to be and the weapons to work like they should. If in "MWO2" a Locust weighs 100 tons and has four legs, well . . . no sale.