benth, on 04 March 2013 - 10:56 PM, said:
Oh how unbridled rage can build a community.
Well, to be fair, there isn't a successful MMO that doesn't have forum posters full of rage. An MMO with a quiet forum is an MMO that no one cares about. There are many "passionate" fans of MWO obviously. And despite all the threats of leaving, I doubt many people actually will, because if people were actually serious about it, they wouldn't threaten or make a big show about it, they'd just leave.
I said before I am a long-time player of STO. When they announced F2P and the forums went all aflame, and then the lockboxes arrived and the forums went all aflame again, there were similar "threats"... most saying that they were going to leave for EvE or SWtOR... well, I think we've all seen what happened to SWtOR. And EvE, which has been around for almost 10 years now, has just announced that they've reached a quarter of the concurrent accounts that STO announced they had last month (when STO celebrated its 3rd year).
I also am a long time player of WoT. I think there's a lot of misdirected rage at that game. First, WoT is wildly successful. PGI would be lucky to have half the success of Wargaming.net. I have also never spent any cash on that game. Not for "Gold Ammo" (not necessary), not for premium tanks (also not necessary), not for camo/paintjobs (because their paymodel for camo is the same ludicrousness that MWO's initially was). I also find it interesting that while people complain about the gold ammo, I've never heard anyone in that game complain about repair/rearm costs or consumables.
And guess what? I have fun in WoT when I play it, even without all that "P2W". I don't take part WoT's Clan Wars (mainly b/c I don't belong to a WoT clan), and maybe that's why I see no need for that marginal, ultracompetitive edge. To me, WoT is a generic tank game though, it's good fun to run around and blast other tanks for a few minutes, but it's not the same as being immersed in a specific universe like BattleTech. I wonder if I was some huge war history buff if I would care enough about buying a specific model of tank, or only driving a certain faction's vehicles, or making sure I had a certain paintjob, but it's just internet tanks to me, I have my fun and log off, maybe come back in a couple weeks when I'm in the mood again.
And then I think back to MWO. B/c this is a franchise I do care about, I do want it to be "right" with what I know about the BattleTech universe. But truthfully, there's not a lot of us left (despite what the forums may lead one to believe, we're just more concentrated here). A lot of people in MWO probably only have vague memories of a computer game over a decade ago, when most of them were probably too young to care about the story behind it all. To them, this is generic "Internet Robots" just like like WoT is generic "Internet Tanks" to me. And they don't care that it's "right", they care if it's fun
for them.
...which brings us back to the Coolant Flush. Because from what vague memories the younger generations have of MechWarrior, they remember that there was a "coolant flush" in it, so that must be what BattleTech is, and it's just not the same without that familiar "FWOOSH". They don't remember that it was the worst thing ever, an atrocity to whole point of having a heat system that you had to manage. But then, who is this game actually being made for? The declining hardcore passionate fans of the franchise like me? Or the vast masses of players unfamiliar with BattleTech?
Business-wise, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense to make much more than a nod to the original BattleTech, and instead pander to the new blood. If they lean too heavily on the universe, they risk alienating their larger audience. Interestingly enough, even with STO's still increasing numbers I still hear the occasional "I think I need to be some sort of ultra Trek nerd to get into STO", while the hardcore passionate fans are all over the forums screaming at the devs that it's still not Trek enough and demand some elaborate story arc featuring a throwaway character that made one appearance in the third season of ST:TNG. (and then even when that happens, yell at them for not getting it "right").
So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not really concerned about the rage that people are throwing all over the place. No, that doesn't mean I approve of the Coolant Flush (because I still think it's a bad idea), but I'm not worried about the game while there are internet people that are angry. Being angry is just one way to show you care (probably not the best way). If people didn't care about MWO, they wouldn't be angry. And regardless of what they do with Coolant Flush, as long as people are having emotional reactions about the game, this game will have an audience to play to.
Also I just realized it's 3:30AM and I'm probably not making any sense...