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[Jern]

I apologize for the long message, I do not make many posts though I read the forums everyday. I am patient and most times I see my concerns and suggestions voiced by others and do not feel the need to “pile on”, in this case I have not seen a suggestion to the specific issues of supporting Online Communities within the game so I felt compelled to make a suggestion. I want to thank you guys for all of the hard work in getting this game to where it is! You guys have made the core elements of what is shaping up to be the best Mech game ever! There is one specific thing that I feel you guys got so right you caused this cynical old Mechwarrior gamer to becoming a true believer in MWO... You guys nailed the driving “feel” of the mechs. The overall maneuverability of the various mechs related to their max speed values is just frankly perfect. The differences between driving a Jenner compared to an Atlas are as profound as I always imagined they should be, and yet no other Mech game managed to create that distinction! I could comment all day on the game play details that I feel you got right and conversely nag about some details that still need work. But, I fully understand this is still beta and you guys are working hard making changes to “tune”, “tweak”, and add new systems and elements to the combat of MWO.

My main purpose for writing this message are the needs of the online communities that support MWO. I am one of the main administrators of an online gaming community, (SG) Sturmgrenadier www.sghq.com SG has nearly a thousand members and we focus on playing team oriented PvP games that typically involve persistent maps and territory control. We currently have large “portals” (communities) focused on playing EvE, WoT, Planetside 2, and WoW, plus we play many other games as a community but do not have focused “portals” for them at this time. It is our hope to start a “portal” for MWO in anticipation of “Community Warfare”. This is not meant to be an advertisement for my community, I will gladly make mention of other organizations such as (AoD) Angels of Death, (OTG) Oldtimers Guild, even communities such as REDDIT etc. Though there are certainly huge differences in our communities and what we represent, how we recruit, organize, and play online games, One thing all of us have in common is that we have multiple thousands of members and we market and support the games we play. I think this is extremely important to F2P games such as MWO. SG brought many hundreds of players to WoT that honestly would never have heard of the game if not for SG promoting it and building a WoT focused community for it. The competitive way in which we play these games mean that our members are typically among the most active, and for F2P games, the most motivated to spend money. Another intangible benefit of players belonging to our communities, is how much longer our members stay involved in a given game due to the community environment that we offer. This is what SG and many other online communities can do for MWO.

My actual suggestion is that we need MWO to prioritize allowing Communities to have an identity in the game, so that we can really grow and promote our MWO communities. First and fore most we need our organizations to be represented in the game, (Even BEFORE Community Warfare comes online). That simply means we need to be able to create our “clans/units” (whatever it is you guys decide to call us) and add our members. This should then be reflected as a “Clan/unit tag” on our names in the game. Secondly I would suggest a consolidation of the forums devoted to House and Merc units. There needs to be a central forum for all online communities to post and let the players know that we are organizing and recruiting for MWO.

We understand that “Community Warfare” may have a long ways to go, and there our some decisions that you guys are having to make about how units will exist and operate within the persistent game. Trust me we want you to get those decisions RIGHT! We do not want to rush you into taking short cuts because for most of us larger online communities those decisions will make or break the game. I certainly would love to offer some specific feedback concerning the decisions on how units will interact and exist in the persistent game, but again tweaking your game is not the main point of this message. I want to encourage you to add “clan/unit tags” to the game and consolidate your forums as a priority BEFORE trying to make all of the tough decisions and development work on “Community Warfare” it is very hard for us to build thriving communities for MWO without technically existing within the game.

Thanks,

Jern
Syndicate officer
Sturmgrenadier www.sghq.com

Edited by Jern, 08 November 2012 - 11:42 AM.