680 replies to this topic

[Peter Wolfe]

Holy Crap, Paul, well delivered. I hate repeating what others have already said, but another pat on your back will do no harm. Honesty, clarity, optimisim and a little hope for mutual trust... Most impressive.

[sts47]

Good call on holding the beta back. Glad to hear of all the plans for improvements.

ONly thing i didn't like hearing was that groups would be limited to max 4 or 8 only.

SOL for people who game with 4 or 5 friends usually


Otherwise, great news

[DarK ExeL]

Thx for news

[Steelpredator]

Very good....

delaying open beta is a step in the right direction imho

Although our merccompany regularly dropped in 8 lots it still is a good idea to begin with 4 in the open beta till phase 2 is complete. WOT does it with platooning and it doesnt disrupt PUG Games too much and company vs company games is for the advanced gamers in clans. I guess our company can live with the phased implementation of matchmaking for the time being and the - hopefully numerous - masses of new players as well.

+++ for the ability to choose when to start premium time ! Appreciate that a lot...

[Overdrive]

Hi guys,

I usually only read the forums, figuring that unless I have something constructive to say then I won't say anything at all. However, I wanted to applaud you for pushing back the open beta and taking the time to make sure that the development of this game is done correctly.

MW2 was the first multiplayer game that I ever experienced, and I was lucky enough to have a number of computers networked at home where my friends and I could game together. It was awesome fun back then and I've been waiting for something with the same degree of excitement since, but it's never come along.

This move has given me confidence that you are pushing for a well polished game over a deadline, which has killed so many other games in the past.

I hope others see the positive side to this move, and like me have put their $$ towards something that will hopefully be as ground breaking as the first games in the series.

Good luck with the rest of the development.

[MaytagWasher]

Just wondering if anyone else is having trouble installing the client? Had to format HD and now I can't install the client. Also, very refreshing to see a development team hold back a product not ready for launch. Seems these days studios skip the Alpha/beta phase in favor of early release and pacth to fix model. I'm glad I purchased a founders package and you guys are working hard to give me value.

[Red Klown X]

pursang, on 14 October 2012 - 12:39 AM, said:

It's a start, at least.




Good luck with trying to attract new players with an attitude like that.

It s not about attracting people , it s about make a game based on the battletech and mechwarrior background .
It s about quality gaming ! do we want pugs everywhere ? who dont care about battle ?play as an alone wolf thinking they are the ultimate terminator ? disconnected when they are near death etc etc ? run bot , get in game for grind credits and stay afk ?

they have to understand mechwarrior / battletech universe is all about clan / house ! Pugs must understand that s it s normal for them to get smashed down by a clan/house team . They must deal with this ! and pug at least can join an unoficial ts server !

I m not anymore an hardcore gamer or pgm ( pay for play ) but the experience show me , that give all a pug want destroy the qualify of the game specifically if the game is turned to team gameplay .

We all know , that a game is also for made money , but if they can keep the system based on clan and house safe , and make an opportunity for the pug to play in solaris game : pug vs pug and an option pug vs clan / house . The game will keep an high rate quality for the FFA .

Pugs are not the blood of a game , take the example of eve online i was there since the beta , we was maximum 50k people in game , i dont think this is change a lot since i m left ( 2 years ago ) , and the game works well . Not like wow or even the new modele F2p/fps world of tank .

I hope you understand my perfect européen english .

[EMonk]

Lege, on 14 October 2012 - 06:01 AM, said:

Let the pugs do their thing. You don't have to play with them if you don't want to.
Soon as they put in phase 2, you can group with 7 friends and fight premades all day.

1: I don't like rolling pugs. They're not fun to play against, because they generally aren't very good.

2: How about all the groups that DON'T have 8 players online at all times? How about groups (like mine) that routinely drop with 5-7 players?

I know that's not a problem for the Goon Swarm, or for the two or three other huge groups in the game, since they have plenty of players to drop with. But how many teams can reliably field 8 players all the time?

And more importantly (MUCH more importantly) what does this move say about the directions that PGI/IGP is taking the project? To me the announcement says that it is far more important to PGI/IGP to provide for the Rambo Brigade than for mid-sized groups. That kinda scares me, and I think it should scare a lot of other people.

Mech Warrior is, and always has been, a group affair. It's not a classic FPS where a solo player can run in and kill everyone. It's not a solo game you can win without any concept of tactics. It's a team game. Financial considerations are important to the company that backs it, natch, but without the team-play element we're just another FPS. MWO needs to be more than that or it will fail, guaranteed.

[Wh1t3Sc4r]

Great to read this! Thanks for listening!

[BladeWarrior]

Great news guys! Keep up the hard work and you will have a super game

[Nufsed]

Just to let you know......My clock will not start ticking.....Until the "Highlander" becomes available..

[Hot Rod]

Thank You Paul,Thank You PGI !

We all love what you are doing, we all acknowledge the work that has been done, we all want this to succeed.

After talking to some friends of mine and talking over the current things in game and the upcoming features they all basically said "Then ill wait". Wether or not you would have pushed the open beta they would have waited to a later date.

This was and is the right decision. They will get a much more polished version and more features to play with.


Sincerely Hot Rod



Personal Note:

my friends are mostly at the age of 30+, maybe it helps to make some assumption to the targeted market-group XD

[AlfalphaCat]

What do the bottoms of boots taste like, anyway?

"Still a long way to go.", is what we should read into this.

[GoreChild]

DEVS! I have complete faith in you and i am confident that this game will (and already does) ROCK!

Thanks for the update

From an ancient mechwarrior and loyal fan of the universe

[pursang]

klownnection, on 14 October 2012 - 10:22 PM, said:

It s not about attracting people , it s about make a game based on the battletech and mechwarrior background .
It s about quality gaming ! do we want pugs everywhere ? who dont care about battle ?play as an alone wolf thinking they are the ultimate terminator ? disconnected when they are near death etc etc ? run bot , get in game for grind credits and stay afk ?

You may not want pugs/new players in this game, but the developers certainly do. As benign as they may be, they are still first and foremost a business looking to make back the amount of time and money that has been invested into this game already and turn a profit as well. And as a business, they don't want to alienate and turn away potential new sources of income. Allow me to break it down for you.

Less people playing = less potential profit. Less potential profit = less content and budget for maintenance for the game. Less content and maintenance budget for the game = disgruntled playerbase. Disgruntled playerbase = people leaving the game for something else. People leaving the game for something else = dead game.

Cause and effect - very basic maths but I hope you get the gist. NO ONE (and I mean the developers, publishers, players, YOU) profits from a F2P game that goes out of its way to alienate its playerbase.

[Red Klown X]

pursang, on 15 October 2012 - 03:44 AM, said:

You may not want pugs/new players in this game, but the developers certainly do. As benign as they may be, they are still first and foremost a business looking to make back the amount of time and money that has been invested into this game already and turn a profit as well. And as a business, they don't want to alienate and turn away potential new sources of income. Allow me to break it down for you.

Less people playing = less potential profit. Less potential profit = less content and budget for maintenance for the game. Less content and maintenance budget for the game = disgruntled playerbase. Disgruntled playerbase = people leaving the game for something else. People leaving the game for something else = dead game.

Cause and effect - very basic maths but I hope you get the gist. NO ONE (and I mean the developers, publishers, players, YOU) profits from a F2P game that goes out of its way to alienate its playerbase.

Did i write somewhere that i dont want pugs ?
and by the way , i prefer less people playing , a real game with a strong background , than see quantity of player like in wot , who turn grind and ffa game painfull . I get eve online as an exemple , they never get more than 50k people and the game is still alive .

Edited by klownnection, 15 October 2012 - 05:09 AM.

[Tokra]

One part i have to add on phase two.

Cant it be possible to make as well a 5-7 man team to join the queue? Sure, this team would play against a 8 man team. But after all, its their problem when they only have less player.

But at least they will be able to queue even without a full team.

Sure, it will be way harder with a 5 man team to play against a 8 man team. But at least its possible to play this way. And maybe the remaining slots can be filled with randoms.

[EMonk]

pursang, on 15 October 2012 - 03:44 AM, said:

Cause and effect - very basic maths but I hope you get the gist. NO ONE (and I mean the developers, publishers, players, YOU) profits from a F2P game that goes out of its way to alienate its playerbase.

You're right, but in the wrong direction. The players you need to worry about losing are the ones that are actually contributing something to the game, not the farmers, aim-bots, griefers, F2P weenies or Rambo Clones. For the most part these are not part of the revenue stream, they're not potential avenues for profit. All they are is an impediment to real players.

Alienation cuts a lot of ways. If the devs violate the conceptual foundation of the game in order to try to attract more people, simply to bump numbers in hope of a bit more profit, the game suffers because of it. How is this an improvement? If the end result is a World of Tanks clone with Mechs, how many people are going to bother staying? How many people are going to bother spending?

The hard-core fans of the genre - the TT players who have owned every MW/BT title ever produced - are the ones that are going to be leaving in droves. And I promise that these guys are more likely to buy the matching bobble-heads and fuzzy dice for US$10 a pop - or $20 for that matter - than any group of FPS-drones who just want to play Rambo in a Mech.

It's a balancing act, no doubt. When you look at all the sides there's no way it could be anything else. The company has got to make money, or the game doesn't survive. That's why so many of us paid $120 for our founders packs... not to get the pretty yellow badge, or the 4 founder mechs, not to get our names in the credits, but because we want the game to have a decent chance of success. We get that funding is a major concern, we really do. Most of us have talked friends into paying for a founder's pack of some sort as well, both to get them into the game and to support the devs. We believe in this game, and it scares us when we see indications that the devs don't believe in us.

I'm not going to cry and demand a refund, and anyone who does is an ***-hat. I want this game to survive, even if it doesn't live up to all my expectations. But I'm gonna be disappointed any time I see the devs treating the hard-core MW fans as second-class citizens in a game we have been waiting a decade for.

[Inertiaman]

BlackBaron, on 12 October 2012 - 05:38 PM, said:

Well, im happy now. I can't say i like the matchmaking idea but it is only temporary so i won't complain.

The trouble is it's moving from temporarily crap to permanently flawed.

I can only speak for the group I play with but we cannot be alone - the evening ranges from 2-8 members in the drop at any given time from a pool of 2-10 or so at absolute max.

1) Currently - We join together with whatever we've got. We play, we win/lose. We play again. Sometimes we get rolled by eights. **it happens. We're adult enough to play another game after such a rolling rather than run crying to the forums.
2) Phase 2 - We're boned unless we have eight. Inconvenient but temporary. OK. Whomever is unlucky to have families or stomachs just plays separate matches from the four people who joined the group first. Temporary. Keep reminding yourselves that players 5, 6, and 7 whilst waiting for a space to come up in the original four drop.
3) Phase 3 - we spend the evening Searching for games if we're eight. I'm happy to be corrected here but only the devs know how many eight groups are dropping at the moment and therefore how many we can expect to see after launch. I play plenty of Heroes of Newerth and other dota clones, 5v5. It takes a few mins to find another group with a userbase of 40k players online so do the math. No seriously, please do the math. I'm terrible at it. Either way - that's an "eight" problem. If we're less than eight then GOTO Phase 2 and enjoy playing solo whilst listening to four of your mates on comms having a good game.

The solution. Abandon the whole premise as it stands. Flatten the public pool in order to keep matchmaking search time down and remind whining idiots that losing is a fact of life. Reward those who keep a good group going with wins over those who do not by allowing them to win more pub games than they lose. Allow those who have a group of between 4-8 people not to get shafted. Give groups the ability to be 2/3/4/5/6/7 and still play together. Again I cannot be speaking only for myself when I say that this is why we're playing

That being said - I'm ALL for a split tier for those (and I include ourselves during the 20% of the evening where we have eight) who want to play pure 8v8's and will accept the wait time. To this end I see every need to have a tickbox that allows a group to choose this queue/gamemode/etc and further would love to see ladders organised off the back of such a tier. You could offer earning incentives to players who take their eight into the 8v8 only tier such as more MC rewards, bigger cbill rewards, free repairs to the winners. Whatever. As long as there's a decent reason to drop in this tier enough of the 8's will do so to alleviate the perception that there are teams of well oiled ******** pubstomping all evening (frankly I think this is as much paranoia as truth, I don't think I see more than one 8 a night)

Notes

Please don't reply with "run two groups" or "get more people". I've been playing games with the same loose group of 15-20 decent people for around two decades and have little interest in advertising for members on forums in order to win a mech game. I just want to play with my mates. It shouldn't be as hard as the OP is making it sound.

Seriously - play some HON. Or better still find someone who plays some HON to show you how the matchmaking works. It's a very pleasant balance between teams getting matched against each other (ELO based) and partial teams still finding a decent game. It just works. If you lose it's because you haven't played as a team, be you random or pre-made there's little excuse.

Above all - you cannot design your way out of some people being terrible at games. Stop trying.

[Ardem]

This is the most stupid thing I heard in my life, your going to make gamers play in multiple of four. We have a core group of about 30-40 members that will play some nights we have 13, some nights we have 5. Your telling me we have to tell the 1 guy sorry we got a group of four you cannot join with us tonight, hopefully someone will come on later.

Great division in your group some people, politics because some marketing jock in a games company think this is how to make lone wolf more viable.

Seriously have you guys really thought about it you will have groups with issues, because you guys really not thought this through.

Also all I hear is 8v8 8v8 blah blah, you starting to scare me as this game is going to be more like counterstrike then where you want to heard as a proper mmorpg with some real life house and mech goals. Which is what I paid my money already for.

Edited by Ardem, 15 October 2012 - 06:04 AM.