59 replies to this topic

[Dr Killinger]

I feel like the prices are a tad high, especially when you start looking at Assaults and Heroes (and paint! Sheesh!) but I have no idea how the economics are looking behind the scenes.

[Red squirrel]

Dr Killinger, on 30 November 2012 - 03:51 PM, said:

I feel like the prices are a tad high, especially when you start looking at Assaults and Heroes (and paint! Sheesh!) but I have no idea how the economics are looking behind the scenes.

IUt would be great if PGI/IGP showed some transparancy and gave some numbers at the end of the year.

[Elizander]

I am probably not one of the people they are selling to. If they gave $1 worth of MC for every $1 spent then it would be easy to make impulse purchases on anything I see or whatever they release, but as it stands, it's not all that efficient or practical to get the lower end deals. I might just settle for buying MC every few months or so to get a better deal and I might not want to buy what they released in the past after that long wait.

Also instead of making small purchases for mechs that I want to get (like some light mechs for fun) I hold off and I'll probably have grinded the c-bills out by the time I make another MC purchase.

[DogmeatX]

Someone said $100 was best option... eh, no.

$100 for (right now) a buggy team death match game with barely a handful of maps? No. You can get several far superior better polished (complete) games for that much.

Alternatively several months/year of genuine MMO gaming in more established and polished MMOs.

MWO is not a MMO. It's 8v8 team deathmatch with a bit of levelling as it currently stands and not worth $50 let alone double that.

I personally won't pay more than a full price game value for any F2P game and then only if it is up to par to a AAA title which sells for the same price.

At the moment I'd push getting the $10 package, the game needs a lot of work on it. It's not really ready for the general public (open beta/release/betease) and needs a LOT of work on it to make it stand up as a stand alone game, let alone any kind of MMO.

Now if they let me buy mech bays and individual mechs directly instead of having to get a minimum MC pack I'd probably allow myself to be nickel and dimed a little bit, if they weren't excessive prices..

Edited by DogmeatX, 01 December 2012 - 05:27 AM.

[Red squirrel]

By the way:
Who is responsible for the economy is it PGI or IGP?

[Sean von Steinike]

I would buy more if the MC were cheaper.....assuming that craptarded 3rd person doesn't get put in.

[Hexenhammer]

Wo hoo! Get 80 dollars of free in game stuff.

We wont tell them that we jacked the prices up so high its not worth it for the most part.

[Red squirrel]

Hexenhammer, on 04 December 2012 - 06:26 PM, said:

Wo hoo! Get 80 dollars of free in game stuff.

We wont tell them that we jacked the prices up so high its not worth it for the most part.

Sad but true.

I just wait for them to sell 3rd person view for 1000MC (but you have to buy it for each mech and if you want to change back to 1st person you have to pay another 2000MC you know because of all the work to rearrange the cameras......)


Sing this petition:
www . concerned mothers against 3rd person view . com
Congress has to act now!!!

Edited by Red squirrel, 06 December 2012 - 04:50 PM.

[FallenFactol]

Nice post OP. I agree.

[MustrumRidcully]

I would have probably made a lot of custom mech designs already and spend lots of MC on them if the prices weren't so high and I didn't know I couldn't keep the colors. Even the C-Bill prices are extreme.

In my mind, a color or a pattern should be a one-time cost to buy, and C-Bills should then be used to repaint the mech. That's pretty much how it works in Champions Online and Startrek Online, and it worked for me. I spend a lot of money on things I may have never really needed or used, but I spend it because i knew I could keep it and use it at a later date.

[Ilwrath]

MC prices are: Fine as is

Would you pay more if things were cheaper?: No

Not a single Euro until they fix netcode, matchmaking and give us more maps.
When I say maps I don't mean ******** reskins!

[Wizard Steve]

The forums are full of people bitching about the game and bitching about MC.

The servers are full of people not bitching about the game and driving hero mechs.

I'm guessing the server logs are giving the devs far more valuable feedback about the direction they're taking than the forums are.

See you all in game.

[MacBinary]

I've loved mechs since my battle tech board game as a kid, i used to love the game too on my dads monochrome monitor, XT running at a whopping 8mhz, 256kb mem, onboard speaker only. I played that game more than i should have. This game, running 4.2ghz, 6970 and 16gb and I'm pretty bored after an hour. so much processing potential, and the game looks wonderful for sure, but its just boring as bat ****.
Just another shooter on a recycled engine, no salvage, no story, no fun. no way am i paying more than once for a game, if this is supposed to be a blast to the past, or my era (1977) then charge me ****ing once for the game and give it all. restrict it by achievements, not by dollars. i'd pay $100 for a finished game, with ALL content available but locked until earned. i've got 2 amiga 500s and a 1200 in my front room, and they cracked a fat agnus when they heard this crazy pricing sch(a)eme these days. I've still got my original pirates game, it had a cloth map ffs, this is such a step backwards. very very lacking at present and will not be shelling out a penny.
the concept is and always will be truly wonderful, battle mechs i mean, but i feel like i've slept with a ****** and i feel dirty and used and a bit itchy.
thanks for the free try anyway, I'll come back in a few months and hope for the best.

[Tickdoff Tank]

[Jetfire]

I have largely been buying MC in a show of goodwill. Maybe the Dev's pull it off and eventually retune costs and refund me a portion of my MC... Maybe they bork the game and close the servers. I am hoping and betting on the former.

The current system is unsustainable, it will work early on when the big fans will drop big money as a gesture of goodwill, but eventually we want value for money like all the people who are holding onto their cash.

Anything over $10 for a mech is insane, I mean compare to miniatures games or CCG's and it's almost tolerable, but compared to video games it's really damn steep. FASA couldn't make a go of it because Mechwarrior/Battletech fanbase isn't enough all on its own. You need everyday gamers too and they won't spend at these rates.

I would say the best possible scenario is at Launch all prices get slashed 50% and all the current players get a massive MC refund equal to the difference between what they spent and the previous costs. IE sale items wouldn't get refunds. Then new players will buy and existing players will fill out their bays with extra MC. Last you change Premium from MC purchase to $$ only and give MC rewards in CW.

Edited by Jetfire, 19 April 2013 - 10:56 AM.

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

Ah, another MC pricing to high thread. I agree, again. Also your second poll should read
"Would you buy more if things were cheaper?"

[Target Rich]

The results shown in this thread are a perfect example of what is called a "Self Fulfilling Prophesy..."

The current economic system in MWO is expressly designed to drive normal players crazy...tothe point where they start shelling out beacoup hard cash...or they leave all the myriad of other venues where you can play amazing MMP's almost for free in comparison.

Heck many, if not most MMP's are free plays which finance the game off of in game percs...

Not this game...heck you have to pay even to get mech bays here...etc.

Most normal players will invest about $30 in a good MMP and then some additional for MAJOR game improvements (ex: WOW). Comparing this with WOW or any other MMP is really falacious because this game does not provide anything like the immersive multifaceted PVE, RVR, and PVP environment that keeps you interested for months...if not years.

This game is nothing more than 4 or 6 maps....about 10-15 possible "mechs" and a grinding system that would drive a saint insane.

There is not one other Mech game that has ever done it this way....thus the current player base overselects for the "tin foil hat" obsessive compulsive mecha fanatic crowd....that while being a good core...does not represent the potential market available for a quality $30-70 dollar basic game disk sale with a minimal connect/play fee that is the model of virtually EVERY other MMP MechWarrior title ever floated.

So guess what....the individuals who shelled out money for an IOU Founder's pack...will respond positively to the concept of shelling out more money on a similar flawed economic model..

Yes it can be done this way....but frankly....that it is virtually guaranteed to marginalize the market appeal of the game to the current 400 k player base is also guaranteed. A successful MMP must appeal to MILLIONS.... and than must be based upon working small incremental values spread over a huge client base...which is exactly what is not happening right now..

[EyeOne]

I think the mech prices are ok enough. Though I think they need to compress the range between the cheapest and most expensive mech.

It's the extras where the Devs lost their minds. But people have bought it sooo...maybe I'm alone. But colors should be 1000MC for an entire set, max. But 1000mc for one color? That's hilarious.

PGI will never get my money for colors for that cost. Which is a shame because I would really like some. (Ok, full disclosure I did but one color for 250 on sale)

[Shively]

I still have 3k of my founders' MC left, and until clans hit, it looks like I won't have much real reason to purchase any more.

Once this batch of premium time's up, I won't be playing until clans hit. See you in 2014, PGI - if you wanted more of my money, you should know damn well what you should have done.

The problems:

Color prices are too high - especially for something that only other players get to see. Camouflage has no real tactical value, and there's no reason for me to ever use anything but my PC Gamer paints and the default schemes. Something purely cosmetic like this shouldn't cost upwards of a couple bucks per unlocked color.

Camo prices are too high - see above.

Mech prices are alright, but I fear that any person willing to shell out MC on a standard 'mech suffers from brain damage. I'm still not happy about the existence of "hero" mechs - some of which have objectively better hardpoint layouts than their c-bill cousins, inching the game toward pay-to-win status.

The monetization of the community-created trial heavy, however, is a cause for concern. The 'mech was created in good faith by a community member, and now PGI/IGP are assumedly profiting off of the 'mech (operating off law of large numbers, some moron's purchased the mech) without having put a second worth of effort into the design. All it is is a standard Dragon with a different loadout, and a measly 10% c-bill bonus. Remind me again why any sane person would reward PGI with a purchase of this mech? Overall, it reeks of a half-assed, hair-brained pointless cash-grab on behalf of either developer or publisher. Most likely both.

Edited by Shively, 19 April 2013 - 12:48 PM.

[Funky Bacon]

I really don't see why people complain about the prices. Sure they are a bit high but at least you know what you have to pay and what you get for it.

They could have implemented a gambling system instead.

----
Buy a hero capsule, with a whooping 0,03 percent chance of getting a RANDOM hero mech! YAY!
And if you don't get your Hero Mech, you will instead get a (minimal) chance to unlock a random color, get a random consumable, some small amount of C-Bills or a (very unlikely) chance of getting a high amount of C-Bills. Only for 250MC each.

Oh someone got the Hero they wanted in one try? Well good for them, too bad you bought 200 of them and still got no Hero mech. I'm sure those brown and olive green colors, not to mention the many artillery strikes you now have was a worthwhile "compensation".
----

Yeeah, I think I'll take the current system.