21 replies to this topic

[uebersoldat]

As an avid EvE Online player, I've always thought that sort of player driven economy and ever-expanding, brutal gameplay would be amazing in the Battletech universe. What if we could obtain blueprints and manufacture mech parts on the market? What if we could hold planets and defend them? What if we could infiltrate one house in favor of another?

My mind almost overheats thinking of the possibilities you folks have with this game. I know you can't do everything at once but look at building the infrastructure for a long-lasting and ever expanding game similar to what CCP is doing with EvE. There is a reason it's been around as long as it has.

[omegaclawe]

TBH I don't think an EVE-like player economy is going to work here. It only works in EVE due to the amount of time people spend doing businessy things rather than actiony things. There's a reason it's called a spreadsheet simulator by many, and I think the overarching model is going to be something more akin to World of Tanks.

EVE is very good at what it does, but trying to do "EVE with Mechs" is going to drive away a large portion of the player base, and I'm pretty sure it won't attract anyone new.

[uebersoldat]

omegaclawe, on 01 November 2011 - 07:06 AM, said:

TBH I don't think an EVE-like player economy is going to work here. It only works in EVE due to the amount of time people spend doing businessy things rather than actiony things. There's a reason it's called a spreadsheet simulator by many, and I think the overarching model is going to be something more akin to World of Tanks.

EVE is very good at what it does, but trying to do "EVE with Mechs" is going to drive away a large portion of the player base, and I'm pretty sure it won't attract anyone new.

I think it's pretty split as for people working the market vs out there pirating and 'ratting'. I don't really see why you wouldn't think that's a good idea here. How would it drive people away? If you had various avenue of gameplay down the road wouldn't that attract different types of players and expose them to the Battletech universe?

[John Clavell]

An EVE Online economy wont work in MechWarrior Online, it's not a sandbox pvp MMO, it's more like TF2 meets BF3 meets MPBT or MekWars Server.

[omegaclawe]

I'd suggest playing a few rounds of WoT to get where I'm comming from. Go on. It's free.

[SquareSphere]

If MWO doesn't have actual free roaming to get to planet to planet/full planet exploration, the economy in EVE wouldn't work since it's dependent on resource gathering and the placement of "permanent" assets

[omegaclawe]

squaresphere, on 01 November 2011 - 07:28 AM, said:

If MWO doesn't have actual free roaming to get to planet to planet/full planet exploration, the economy in EVE wouldn't work since it's dependent on resource gathering and the placement of "permanent" assets

Actually, one of the major tennants of EVE's design is that everything that is owned by a player can be destroyed or stolen... not that it would make an EVE economy work better, here.

[John Clavell]

Remember this is not going to be an 'MMO' it will be a Multiplayer Action / Sim game with no single player component in the same vain as Team Fortress 2 (if you exclude the offline bots) just exchange the hats for Mechs and customisation inside and outside of your mechs cockpit.

I've not played WoT, and the only thing which will get me to install Bootcamp, is going to be this upcoming game. Until then windows can ****** off But from my very very limited understanding of how micro-transactions in WoT works it's basically a 'Gold Ammo' game where you can buy better ammo and **** with real-life money.

If some of you in this thread actually play EVE Online like me, you'll know how well 'Gold Ammo' rumours went down recently ;-) Gold Ammo and P2W in games totally ruins a competitive multiplayer game in the long run. And from what has been published it looks like the devs wont be taking MWO down that road.

But anyway, the economy in WoT's cant be much like EVE Online, as players would need to create things which can be sold to other players, from materials and industry run by players. WoT is not a sandbox game. I'm going to guess you'll get paid some kind of wage form your employer in game with C-bills which you can use to upgrade stuff on your mech or buy new components, maybe you could trade them with others.

[omegaclawe]

While I don't think the "Gold Ammo" was prevalent enough in WoT to really ruin the game, per say (the tier system/tech tree does that), I would certainly prefer not to have anything of the sort in MWO. I don't mind, however, a method of increasing the speed at which one levels up with real world money. While I'm not likely to use it, it would boost the total revenue of the game significantly, while not giving paying players anything that a free player can't get. I don't think pretty paintjobs is going to pay the bills, in the end.

I think, mostly, the money you earn in game will be, like in WoT, a number based on how well you did in a given match. Kill 5 mechs? Lots of Money. Provide Line of Sight to the Artillery so he can kill 5 mechs? Lots of money, as well. ***-rush the enemy and get killed immediately? Very little monies.

[uebersoldat]

I keep hearing WoT...has the dev said this is going to be like WoT? The only similarity I see is that both are F2P (and MWO is not P2W).

[CyBerkut]

Speaking as an avid Eve Online player (3 active accounts), ... I don't see that sort of economy / gameplay being a good fit for this, and where they appear to be going with it. For one thing, Eve Online is a persistent universe. When you get blown up in there, it is often very costly (in that you have to spend a lot of time to acquire the resources to replace what you lost). So much so, that there are many people in the game who really don't want to be involved in PvP combat. MW:O appears to be very much centered upon the combat at the lance / company level. Having such long-lasting / high-impact economic repercussions in this game would seem to be less than encouraging for combat, and especially unit cohesion. [Commander to the raven pilot, "scout out that area ahead, locate that Atlas and report his position". The raven pilot replies, "Scr3w that man, I just pimped this thing out with high C-Bill electronics, and I'm not losing it for your sorry bu++!]

Besides, I'm guessing that attempting to add that sort of economy in would be a major undertaking, and would take development resources away from the programming of the game/combat elements.

It will be interesting to see how the Dust 514 project melds with Eve Online. I suspect that trying to go anywhere near that with MW:O would not work well.

Edited by cyberkut, 01 November 2011 - 08:42 AM.

[goon]

They've said that gameplay is based upon a round structure. meaning that you go into a game, kill things and do stuff, and then come out to manage your Mechs and pilot(s), I'm expecting it to play a lot like World of Tanks (which I play frequently) but hopefully this game doesn't have the absurd balance issues and notoriously bad developer feedback that Game has ( "if you don't like it you can go play Barbie online!"). all in all a player run economy thrown into the middle of that just wouldn't fit and would serve to bog the game down.

Edited by goon, 01 November 2011 - 09:11 AM.

[Manhattan]

As others have said above, the EVE economy works primarily because it exists in a single persistent sandbox world. I've played EVE for several years and I still admire it for being what it is, but I don't think MWO should go in the same direction. I'd like it to stay focused on the action -- piloting mechs (and perhaps combined arms later on). What I hope we do see in MWO that we also see in EVE is a real sense of permanence. I hope there is only one instance of the Inner Sphere so that our victories and defeats have a universal significance regardless of whether the battles themselves take place in instanced settings.

[KingCobra]

Playing EVE for some time i know the economy system might work in a limited way for IS houses or Clan houses as a way to produce mech factorys parts,ect as if you were playing a Planetay league. A guild system might also work to produce a economy based on battle salvage rather than new parts and repair shops to fix the salvage and sell it to other houses or to your own members.The biggest thing a EVE type integration would do is animate the feeling of dropships landing and deploying mechs in a planetary capture or defend scenario.

[AlanEsh]

uebersoldat, on 01 November 2011 - 07:41 AM, said:

I keep hearing WoT...has the dev said this is going to be like WoT? The only similarity I see is that both are F2P (and MWO is not P2W).

If you play WoT, then the PC Gamer interview sounds a lot like a mech version of that game.

[uebersoldat]

Well, I suppose it was just wishful thinking, but I guess I realize it would be a very different kind of game. BUT I'm not the dev, just thought I'd point out how neat an in-game economy would be. Let's face it, the Battletech fiction is more than just blasting each other away in giant walking tanks (it's my favorite part however ) No, there is a lot of inter-stellar political espionage and economic fluctuations among the great houses. It would be cool to see that done on a large scale but with all the Simmy action we all love so much.

All in all, I am completely fine with a WoT style deploy and blow things up type game

Edited by uebersoldat, 01 November 2011 - 10:24 AM.

[Gorthaur]

although i agree it wouldn't work in mechwarrior to have an eve economy, itd be neat if they took some cues from it. i think it would be interesting to have some kind of black market where we can sell stuff to each other for in game cash or real cash depending on what it is.

[UncleKulikov]

With an economy like EVE's, I would be concerned about farming.

[Lorebot]

As an EVE player I can certainly say that I don't want a player based economy in MWO.

I love EVE, don't get me wrong, but there are way more 'sticks' involved with that game than there are 'carrots'. A lot of the time it feels like a job and not a game, I don't want that for MWO...or any other game I play honestly. I've played EVE for nearly 4 years now and I'll probably continue to play it till they turn off Tranquility, but it's been hard at times to justify continuing to play the game because of the extreme time investment required.

Besides all of that I don't want to have to go out in a industrial mech and help mine for ores and stuff...I just want to blow stuff up. I don't want to depend on a player controlled market for mechs, weapons, and ammo. I don't mind a player influenced market with a black market or auction house style option to purchase stuff, but I want a standardized market too where I can buy stuff for a fixed price at any time. That would not only help regulate prices on the player controlled side of things, but also ensure my access to items without having to depend on some other player obtaining and posting the item for sale first.

I love sandbox stuff, but a lot of the time the devs go way overboard with it and at some point you're going to stop having fun with it because it stops being novel and engaging and turns into a cliche drudgery.

[MagnusEffect]

omegaclawe, on 01 November 2011 - 07:17 AM, said:

I'd suggest playing a few rounds of WoT to get where I'm comming from. Go on. It's free.

I would rather rip a fingernail out than play another round of WoT. Can we please get away from saying comments like "MWO will be similar to WoT". You are seriously going to give me nightmares. I think we can raise the bar A LOT higher.

Edited by MagnusEffect, 10 November 2011 - 09:46 PM.