265 replies to this topic

[The Cheese]

Thank you for the response. It's refreshing to get such a straightforward message from someone in charge.

Having said that, none of those reasons given are why I don't think it's ready just yet.

Net code and client stability. That's it. I want to hit what it looks like I'm hitting, and not have my client crash every 3 games. Get those nailed, and I will love new players like my own children, if that's what it takes to keep things going smoothly.

[Wired]

I'm ok with this.

[Kaemon]

Garth Erlam, on 26 October 2012 - 03:57 PM, said:

The program was quite obviously a huge success, in fact at 5.2 Million it has set a new high bar for these types of programs.

Holy ****, lol...whiskey tango foxtrot am I doing screwing around in IT in the financial services industry for! (nice work!)

It seems a lot of the (non whiny 13 year old angst) stems from the fact that there are large or personally important features/aspects of the game that aren't quite clicking yet, and while I'm sure the devs can see the larger picture, sometimes we can't see the forest through the non-destructible (yes I had to get that in there) trees.

I think however, it is time to go into Open BETA, we need to ramp up not only the player base, but public exposure as well. It's time for the community to nut up or shut up, the devs to fine tune (and in some cases) ramp up the bug fixes, and let's get this thing as close to a finely tuned process as we can.

Now is not the time to give up, because the road ahead looks a bit bumpy, push into Open BETA (or take a break and come back in 3 months) then take a look and see where it's at.

If it's no better, you were right, congrats, here's a cookie, if you were wrong, it's ok, we'll still be more than happy to shoot Gauss rounds at you and forget the whole thing (after we've DFA'd you a few times, after all).

Welcome to the internet and online gaming, adjust your helmet (or seat cushion), and lets do this...

Edited by Kaemon, 26 October 2012 - 06:09 PM.

[mekabuser]

Saying that PC gamer etc found the gameplay addictive etc . DOnt believe it. THere is alot you still need to do JUST in the core gameplay.
FOr petes sake , you D ont even have viable ppc yet.. You dont have combat gameplay that is even close to mw4... Let alone LL. Zero collision, Zero dfa, Zero melee. Quite honestly , kinda boring . ******** WOT is not your model
zero maps, Zero strategy.

I will give you a free piece of advice.

MAKE YOUR 3 drop mode epic.
DO NOT make your 3 drop mode another money grab.
BELIEVE me, you NEED player loyalty.
I believe you are GREATLY overestimating the playerbase's loyalty.

I highly recomend you concentrate on content.. MAPS and gamemodes. Kiss our as ses with content. Make us WANT to say how awesome the game is..
pretty damn impossible to do when there isnt even a ppc.thats viable.
All we see is constant attempts by devs etc to squeeze any and all money from us
Its all about business model, business model... Listen, create a game that will be around for years and the money will be there.
And finally , 15 bucks for a hero mech is just stupid. Charge 5, and get 10 times the number of purchases,PLUS when money is spent, loyalty is acquired via investment. .

[Okie135]

You know what you're doing.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld aquaintance be fogot,
and auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
and surely I'll be mine!
And we'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne!

[The Echo Inside]

Will say, I still have reservations about this being wise. With the number of issues still present, and even some basic features still missing, it does seem/feel like this stage should be considered more of an "Alpha" than a "Beta". And I worry that, in the long term, this will mean a much weaker player base.

That said, I am still enjoying the game, bare bones and buggy as it is, it's still often a lot of fun. I know the core fans (like myself) will be likely to stick it out for a long time and come back after any hiatus we might have. I hope the new masses will see the golden nugget inside and stay to watch it grow.

Good luck to your and your team moving forward.

[deputydog]

Yea just do it.

I for one will play more if my stats and cbills stick. If anything it will cause a lot more testing and get more people talking and more stuff fixed/tweaked.

As from above, I think the fastest tweak that is needed is a chat lobby and maybe even a way to send messages to people in games like any other multiplayer game out there. Do that and the rest can trickle in as you get to it.

New people will love it for the glitzy combat and by the time they get fatigued, more crap will have been added.


Yay I can finally get my dad and kids to play. Got my own private lance!

[ManDaisy]

The question is ... does PGI feel lucky? I predict servers catching on fire and locust swarms in their pizza boxes. Of course that will only be the first 15 minutes, then the population will drop to a manageble level as people just lose interest and never return.

PGI may certainly have our founders money but they sure DON'T have the money from new people comming in and arn't likely to get it if they don't leave a good first impression.

Edited by ManDaisy, 26 October 2012 - 06:21 PM.

[Seraphax]

Looking forward to it. I have to say, despite any downfalls to transitioning to open beta now, I'll be playing ALOT more often now that my efforts wont be wiped and all my non founders friends can join in. I don't see any reason going open "BETA" with a polished but unfinished game will hurt its longevity. If anything it will invest more people in the growing process and help non battletech fanatics get excited about the story line and game as it evolves. I'm sick of these whiners and if it kills the game for them then good riddance. It's the whining in and out of game that's been making it unbearable, not the inevitable glitches that come with any patch in any game whether it be beta or full release. PGI has been doing a better job catching up with balancing and glitch fixes than their resources should allow and I for one am excited to shoot giant digital robots with the rest of the world on monday.

[Slackalope]

Um. Really? Open beta on 29 October? With just 2 centurions? Gotta say... lame.

-Malphos

[Dirty Old Man]

We are ready for the flood man ! And we will show the new comers a great time !

[pursang]

So that's it then, huh? Run out of development money and now the hope is to rake in more? I can't say I didn't expect this, but it's still disappointing considering that this game is lacking some key features. I just hope that the rest of the public is as forgiving as your average hardcore MechWarrior enthusiast...

[JadePanther]

But the science is fun..
And theres TESTING TO BE DONE..
So we can shoot our neat guns
at those who are STILL ALIVE!

[Nugar]

Although I expected Open Beta to start soon, are you kidding me with it being the 29th? You just dropped this enormous patch on us and most of it doesn't even work properly! November 6th before double heat sinks get fixed, maybe? Ferro fibrous armor is useless? Weird crashes abounding? Sheesh. Look, I get that you want to go open beta. But don't dump an huge load of new features that quite provably do not work and then say 'Oh, well, look at all the features we put in the game before open beta!' No, they're not in the game yet. Take at least a week to get this stuff fixed first. Even going open beta before this patch would have made more sense, at least it was pretty stable, inability to close the process notwithstanding.

Take a little time to get this snarled mess of a patch actually working, then go open beta. I ain't asking for all the features to be in it yet. But I do want an actual working game before it suddenly 'launches'.

[Arithion]

In the mail, the message says "Once it happens, we will not be resetting everything again. We will be resetting C-Bills, MC, XP, GXP, Mechs, and inventory. The only thing you’ll keep is your friends list. However, if you have a Founders pack, everything will be added from that pack. Also anything you’ve purchased (with MC) will be added back."

Does this mean that any and all mechs we have spent MC on currently these last few days. Are we going to keep those mechs and get our MC back as well? Or are we getting the mechs we have bought with MC, and whatever MC we have not spent? The email makes this very confusing. Could we get a slight clarification?

Thank you very much PGI!

[darknothing]

Battlecruiser, on 26 October 2012 - 04:18 PM, said:

what about game optimization. when are we getting that?

They need to fix the framerates asap! Russ also said dx11 would be out before ob, dx9 is very old, and wont cut it.
Also content will drive alot of players away, bugs, and much more. I don't want this to fail, but i left wot for the same reason
Slow content updates drive players away!

[darknothing]

Seraphax, on 26 October 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

Looking forward to it. I have to say, despite any downfalls to transitioning to open beta now, I'll be playing ALOT more often now that my efforts wont be wiped and all my non founders friends can join in. I don't see any reason going open "BETA" with a polished but unfinished game will hurt its longevity. If anything it will invest more people in the growing process and help non battletech fanatics get excited about the story line and game as it evolves. I'm sick of these whiners and if it kills the game for them then good riddance. It's the whining in and out of game that's been making it unbearable, not the inevitable glitches that come with any patch in any game whether it be beta or full release. PGI has been doing a better job catching up with balancing and glitch fixes than their resources should allow and I for one am excited to shoot giant digital robots with the rest of the world on monday.

Polished? Are you mad? Last patch screwed everything man!!!!

[Jabilac]

[The Freeborn Badass]

Great communication with the community guys.

Still I have to agree that this game is not quite ready for open beta. It does in no way feel complete or finished.
And - for example - not having proper collision detection, no ingame lobbies and no introductory maps/ tutorials may really make a bad impression.

We shall see what happens.

[Matthew Ace]

IMHO, going into OB at this point of time is a mistake (although not as bad as when it was announced to go green on the 16th). Reasons being:

- Collision being removed for fixing
- Netcode still needs to be optimised
- Lack of a player lobby
- Unintuitive Mech Lab interface as of latest update
- Cumbersome customisation as of latest update
- An Introductory Tutorial to get new players getting used via kinematics/hands-on (Training video is a start, but being able to handle mech with an interactive tutorial would go a LONG way)
- FPS drops on certain mechs (especially Frozen City's snowstorm)
- (Lesser Concern) Double Heat Sink

Optionally to ensure gameplay does not get stale quickly,
- Minimum of 2 new maps (which is fine if the wait is not too long - i.e. on the order of not more than 2 weeks)
- Having a total of 7-8 trial mechs to choose from (as opposed to just 4). Let the new players get a better feel what they might prefer.
- 1 additional gameplay mode (also fine if the wait is not too long - i.e. on the order of not more than 2 weeks)

The number of mechs to start off with is somewhat close, as is the current weapon balance.

Edited by Matthew Ace, 26 October 2012 - 10:05 PM.