18 replies to this topic

[TyR]

I imagine someone has come up with this idea and mentioned it before, but just in case or to provide more support for it here is my idea for an implementation.

Many people I know want to have the ability to have private matches. These have been a vital part of the mech community for quite a few years. Comments have been made about cost being a factor in providing this ability. My proposed solution to this is simple. Allow the community to rent their own private server space from PGI. Below are some points to consider and solutions to possible issues.

What is a private server good for?
They allow for units to holding training and practice sessions as well as partake in official trials for entry or rank and just test out the weapon systems and game mechanics in a more ideal environment. Additionally they would provide the ability to have third party leagues. These leagues helped the fun factor for many players in the past by providing different organized experiences, so a player could find a group best suited for his or her play style. Not everyone wants to just do random public drops, nor will everyone want to focus on the provided community warfare. Third party leagues let players fight the way they want to whether it be a simple ladder league to a complicated planetary conquest with troop maneuvering, politics and strategy.

Rent directly from PGI
PGI gets another revenue source from MWO. There are no issues of server software being distributed because all that is provided to the player/renter is a management interface, not actual server software to be installed and maintained. By handling the server software internally, PGI maintains control over any possible hacks or out of date version issues that could come up from a traditional dedicated server model.

Cost for private matches is offset
With the players paying for their own servers PGI has no additional cost (once development of the proper interface is completed).

Increase revenue
As mentioned previously this would provide more money to game maintenance and development. If the server is not being used then there is additional income with no additional usage (assuming several games are hosted on a single server). I know that this is probably unlikely, but charges could be based on total usage or just refunded to a certain amount based on usage rates.

Customization
Allow for specific settings on the server. Here are some settings that should be considered. Some are already in the game in some form now, but others are not. The last ones I strike through because they, in my opinion, do not really belong in a mech game but are possibilities.

• Map selection
  
• Game mode
  
• Time limit (or lack of)
  
• Respawn mode (none, x lives, unlimited, wave, etc)
  
• Team size (4v4, 8v8, 12v12)
  
• Tonnage and/or class balance (similar to current matchmaking)
  
• Time of day (when implemented for the maps)
  
• Visibility/weather
  
• Gravity
  
• Temperature
  
• Trial mechs only on/off
  
• 3rd person view
  
• No heat
  
• Unlimited ammo
  
• Collision damage on/off
  
• Friendly fire on/off

No stats, cbills or xp
Do not allow for stats, xp or cbills to be earned on the server, but turn off repair and rearm as well. This will ensure players still partake in public games, and cannot exploit the system to earn xp and cbills quickly through unintended methods of lameness.

Multiple rental plans
Allow for options to based on the number of games. I am recalling a statement about cost being the same for a 2 person game or a 16 person game in terms of resources. Rent them out that way. Smaller groups will only want the ability for one or two simultaneous matches, but some larger groups may want more. Implement the standard save x% for each game allowed at once. Provide a tiered option to allow x, y, z, or unlimited number of games per month. This will let some smaller units or players get in on this without as much of an investment.

Keep the community together
Some people have voiced concerns about the fracturing of the player base beyond what the ideas in my initial post could prevent. This could be especially true in the long term after some players have accumulated months and years of actual game time. I have some approaches that could be tested out initially or implemented later. Their usefulness is subject to change based on how community warfare is implemented as well. Here is a quick list of some thoughts I have on how we can make sure that players participating in private matches continue to be part of the general population. Perhaps one or a combination of these ideas will provide a good solution that makes everyone happy.

• Enable the repair and rearm system for private matches, but still avoid earning income or xp in them.
  
• Keep adding new content to the game. It is my understanding that this will be happening, so with each new mech that gets added players are forced to leave their private games to earn the xp and money required to improve their mechs.
  
• Charge a "Comstar Fee" for each private game played. Do not make it ridiculously high as players are already paying real money to play these games, but tweak it so players must participate in the outside world.
  
• Add rewards and achievements that can only be earned by playing in community warfare or public games. Give out all kinds of things from basics such as custom skins or cockpit items to free premium time or even a mech (obviously a rare case).
  
• Building off of the last point, raffle away a number of mechs each month. Make it a weighted drawing of active players based on number of public games participated in.
  
• Include a monthly leader board or top pilots list (a whole new topic) not with some generic most kills, but stats like most damage taken with the fewest deaths or highest drop to death ratio. Not necessarily a great example, but the idea being that it would be cumulative and force people to play publicly instead of privately while still not bringing up any kill stealing issue which is probably preventing there from being public stats now. I know those both could have issues too, but keep in mind I am just giving generic examples right now.
  
• Have some other ideas floating around in my head, but I will see how these are received first before spending some time solidifying them.

Edited by TyR, 16 November 2012 - 12:07 PM.

[CompproB237]

After they get the game to the Polish Stage I'd like for them to see about adding something like this. Well thought out post.

[TyGeR STD]

I am really suprised this hasn't gotten more feed back. This would do A LOT to help the longevity of the game. I remember from back in Mechwarrior 2, that leauge play is the one thing that kept me playing night after night, for years. With out the leauge play their wouldn't not have been such a rich, deep community for the game. I know PGI has there own community warfare that they will have implemented for the game but a way for players to host and run there own privet servers would do a lot for the game. as the OP said, units can host trials, pratics, fight other units in coustom matchs, an even lay the road for 3rd party leauges. 3rd party leauges made a world of difference for mechwarrior 2, mech 3, and mech 4. After the first few months of mechwarrior 4 being released, I would say 80% plus of the players that were logging in to play MW4 online were part of the PWL, countless servers were hosted by units to test stratgys and ideas to test for the next set of drops they would have to do.

The reasons the OP listed for this are great, and the big thing PGI needs to look at is


Increase revenue
As mentioned previously this would provide more money to game maintenance and development. If the server is not being used then there is additional income with no additional usage (assuming several games are hosted on a single server). I know that this is probably unlikely, but charges could be based on total usage or just refunded to a certain amount based on usage rates.

This one idea here could keep PGI funded for years by itself. Then add on the other microtransactions players will be making an its a Win/Win for everyone. PGI could even setup a way that players can spend MC on renting these servers, other players could donate MC to the funding of these servers and you have more an more people spending money for MC to do server, buy mechs an so on.

[Thorn Hallis]

I guess PGI views its community warfare feature as something like a league. As of now there not supporting 3rd party leagues.

[ChargerIIC]

You mean give random players access to the server software and its code? You do realize that it would become decompilied before the day was out in that case right?

[Curon Hifor]

As much as I would like this feature, PGI has repeatedly said they would not entertain this idea for at least another year.

[TyR]

ChargerIIC, on 16 November 2012 - 06:22 AM, said:

You mean give random players access to the server software and its code? You do realize that it would become decompilied before the day was out in that case right?

No, that is exactly opposite to what I intended in my second point.

TyR, on 15 November 2012 - 08:16 PM, said:

Rent directly from PGI
PGI gets another revenue source from MWO. No issue about server software being distributed this way. PGI maintains control over any possible hacks or out of date version issues that could come up from a traditional dedicated server model.

The idea is that the players never deal directly with the software. All that PGI would provide would be an interface. The actual server software is never exposed, only a management interface. I will add to this point to clarify any confusion.

[Battlefinger]

I was initially unsure about this, but after seeing your post, I feel it would be a pretty good idea. It can give people the ability to quickly and easily run a good match between friends during a LAN party or something, without having to worry about other people they don't want joining. As long as you can't accumulate CBills, XP and stats on a pirvate server, I love this idea. Much like DayZ allows for Private Hive games, where people can run their own server, but their inventory and player statistics do not carry over to the official DayZ Hive server, they are local to the private one. I think i would love to hire a private server for my buddies and I, plus that could mean it would be easier to host servers in other countries right? I mean being in Australia, my ping to America is horrible and so is my friends' pings. It could be great to hire out our own, speedy little Australian-based server to use for our own private matches.

[Imagine Dragons]

The only concern I have left after reading this, is that IF it goes exactly how you explain it, the private servers might end up undermining Community/Faction Warfare meta game PGI is building for next year...

[TyR]

XenomorphZZ, on 16 November 2012 - 10:38 AM, said:

The only concern I have left after reading this, is that IF it goes exactly how you explain it, the private servers might end up undermining Community/Faction Warfare meta game PGI is building for next year...

I can see how that could be an issue still, but this problem is at least partially offset by not allowing for any advancement in terms of xp or cbills while in a private game. Depending how PGI implements community warfare may be the key. If the rewards are greatest for players by participating in this system then I do not think the private servers would cause much of an issue. If the rewards are the same as just jumping into an open game then it might not be as enticing to participate in the community warfare aspect. Until more details are released on community warfare I think it is still tough to say for sure either way, but as long as xp and cbills are not earned in a private game I think people will be participating in public quite often. Another possible alternative is to charge repair and rearm fees from private matches, but do not allow earning still. This might make things a little too restrictive to use a service that was paid for by real money though.

Just updated the post with some options to help avoid this type of an issue.

Edited by TyR, 16 November 2012 - 12:08 PM.

[Noth]

Chances are this will never happen. The best you can hope for is a private match option.

[Sulf]

They've already said they'll be adding the ability to challenge other groups. As far as training, it's asked about so much I imagine the ability to deploy in either a training map, or even any map to explore can't be that far behind.

There's no reason why you should need to rent out anything.

[Sprouticus]

Brickyard, on 16 November 2012 - 01:09 PM, said:

They've already said they'll be adding the ability to challenge other groups. As far as training, it's asked about so much I imagine the ability to deploy in either a training map, or even any map to explore can't be that far behind.

There's no reason why you should need to rent out anything.

Look at it from the other angle though. IF they let us rent out a server (or even let someone rent out X number of matches) it would provide qa huge income resource for PGI. Let's face it, every organized unit out there would use it. Some of us would use it a LOT. (clan trials, practice, testing loadouts, longer matches, map training and exploration, etc)

[Sulf]

Sprouticus, on 16 November 2012 - 02:23 PM, said:

Look at it from the other angle though. IF they let us rent out a server (or even let someone rent out X number of matches) it would provide qa huge income resource for PGI. Let's face it, every organized unit out there would use it. Some of us would use it a LOT. (clan trials, practice, testing loadouts, longer matches, map training and exploration, etc)

Wait. So they want to give you exactly what you want for free, but you only want it if you have to PAY?

[TyR]

Brickyard, on 16 November 2012 - 02:36 PM, said:

Wait. So they want to give you exactly what you want for free, but you only want it if you have to PAY?

I pay for music I could pirate if I wanted to. Why not support the company? That being said, I am not sure they do plan on giving us exactly what we want. Even if they do intend to provide what we want they seem somewhat hesitant to do so, so I am just offering a way that lets them provide us the service we want while trying to alleviate the issues they seem to have doing so. Maybe this way it will not be last on their list or only partially what we want.

[Elder Thorn]

servers should not be hosted by 3rd partys. This would split up the community.
However, private matches should be there and will hopefully come soon to make training sessions and that kinf of stuff possible

also this:

ChargerIIC, on 16 November 2012 - 06:22 AM, said:

You mean give random players access to the server software and its code? You do realize that it would become decompilied before the day was out in that case right?

Edited by Elder Thorn, 16 November 2012 - 04:30 PM.

[TyGeR STD]

does it really matter if they gave out the code? every MMO out has private hacked servers running. The OP was not talking about this... but for PGI to host and rent out servers so no 3rd party's would be involved. if they charged 5000 to 10000 MC a month and had a way players could donate on a server to spread the cost would be awesome.

Also I do not think that this or any 3rd party league would hurt the community warfare. Most players would be around to do community warfare as well as do league play. I bet some of players would do nothing but the community warfare, most would do both.

I really don't see any draw backs to this.

[Elder Thorn]

TyGeR STD, on 16 November 2012 - 05:24 PM, said:

does it really matter if they gave out the code? every MMO out has private hacked servers running. The OP was not talking about this... but for PGI to host and rent out servers so no 3rd party's would be involved. if they charged 5000 to 10000 MC a month and had a way players could donate on a server to spread the cost would be awesome.

Also I do not think that this or any 3rd party league would hurt the community warfare. Most players would be around to do community warfare as well as do league play. I bet some of players would do nothing but the community warfare, most would do both.

I really don't see any draw backs to this.

most so called private MMO servers use very old server software, that cannot be compared to the software running on the official servers.

As for the 3rd party league play. I would be fine wiht that, but it could be implemented without giving away the server / have other people host another server.

[TyR]

Elder Thorn, on 16 November 2012 - 05:35 PM, said:

As for the 3rd party league play. I would be fine wiht that, but it could be implemented without giving away the server / have other people host another server.

Yeah, that is what I am suggesting to avoid all of the issues that would come by having the software released. Not to mention this is easier on the players who would want these servers as they would not have to deal with any technical aspects.