Slashdot Mirror
Mechwarrior Online Developer Redefines Community Warfare
New submitter MeatoBurrito writes "The latest iteration of Mechwarrior was crowdfunded (without Kickstarter) as a free-to-play first-person mech simulator. However, despite promises to the founders, the game has been shifted to a third-person arcade shooter and now the community is rioting. This followed a series of other unpopular decisions; the developers decided to sell an item for real money that had a significant impact on gameplay, crossing the line separating cosmetic/convenience items and 'pay-to-win.' Then they added a confusing game mechanic to limit its use, which had the unfortunate side effect of making some strategies completely useless. From the article: 'PGI’s community practices showcase a fundamental misunderstanding of both freemium development and community management. The developer has never had to deal with such a large player base before, and it has never had to deal with the strains of continuous development before. Rather, PGI seems to be handling Mechwarrior Online in much the same way they might a AAA game: by keeping quiet and only discussing its work in vague terms. ... Mechwarrior Online’s road to launch is a cautionary consumer tale, fraught with anger and betrayal. It shows how a company can take a fan base dedicated to an old IP and completely alienate it through lack of communication, unpopular features, and oathbreaking. It shows how players need to be cautious of supporting a project based solely on the IP backing it.'"
I thought that firewalls handled that already.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Speak for yourself, stravag.
And I wonder what the heck the submitter / article author is smoking?
Yes, they've done some things a lot of folks (myself included) have been unhappy with - I could list several things if you guys want - but the stuff in the summary is largely not true. What item is this he claims they have sold for real money (implying you can't get it with in-game currency) that has crossed the line into pay-to-win? I know of no such item!
The biggest issue they've had recently is the addition of 3rd person view, which upset a lot of us - especially since they promised a separate 'hardcore' queue for those who didn't want to play with folks using 3PV, and then didn't follow through on that. They have made some other moves instead, though, which at least help: the real competition-level 12 vs 12 organized group games will not have 3PV available.
On the plus side, the gameplay is generally fun and they have also done an *amazing* job with the mech designs! Are there things still to be done? Yes - tons! Are there things I would have done differently - yes, but they can't please everyone! But are they completely shifting to an 'arcade shooter'? Heck no! :)
William George
When you "crowdfund" something you are giving money with really no basis for expecting anything in return. This is why I would rather just buy something instead of crowdfund it. I don't do investment, it is risky. I do do Kiva though for small amounts.
This is problem with kickstarter and the like. Managing expectations. It looks like you are buying a product when in fact you are giving money to someone to develop an idea. This illusion of buying a product is reinforced by the limitation on 'fund my life projects'.
In this case a game was produced. It sounds like due to financial constraints of running the game certain compromises had to made. This is standard. The initial concept is almost always unfeasible. Certain comprises have to be made during the engineering process. But the fact remains that apparently the money was used to develop a product that was, in general, like the product being advertised.
What the firm maybe should have done is said that the original product could not be developed, and, BTW, we have no contract to give you anything, so we will just take the work done and make this complete other product, which looks almost the same, but we promise isn't, and you can pay just like anyone else. Which really is what they did but they tried to sugarcoat a bit better than that.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
It shows how players need to be cautious of supporting a project based solely on the IP backing it.'"
Or as those of us in the old guard of the geek community call it... "The Lucas Effect".
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Why shouldn't they be whiny? The online gaming hivemind decreed a long time ago that anything "pay to win" was something that they generally don't want. This was and still is the line for many people where monetizing a product stops being about making a reasonable profit and starts being about wringing consumers for every last penny.
There is no reason, in this day and age, that developers need to be making massive game destroying mistakes like this. There are many business models out there that skirt the "pay to win" boundary without crossing it that they could have copied (see LoL, Eve, PS2, etc). It's just incompetence on the part of the developers.
PGI has managed to snatch failure from the jaws of success, by ignoring, insulting, and lying to it's community.
Hah, how sensationalist. No, they just added a third person camera like all the old Mechwarrior offline games and a bunch of tryhards who seem to know better than the developers -- and these sort ALWAYS think they know better than the developers -- are upset about it.
Does this mean that, without crowdfunding, the game would simply not come into being? "Not quite," he says. "The product will be a lot better for players because of the crowdfunding.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
What will those crazy psychologists think of next ???!!!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The fan base shouldn't be so whiny and picky. That goes for any fan base or gaming community.
If you want a less whiny and picky fanbase don't, Just Don't base your game's appeal on a continuously-developed-since-1984 tabletop-wargamer-nerd cult hit. Especially not one with several successful-but-now-dated PC game interpretations already built by other developers.
If you have made that mistake, don't double down on the stupid by systematically alienating players and pushing the game toward the direction of being a generic action/arcade title (because that's not a crowded genre where better-funded franchises will crush you like a bug or anything...)
If you want to play the "This is my goddam gameworld, you don't have to like it, the door is that way!" strategy it's idiotic to base the game on a well-established franchise universe: it severely limits your creative options and ensures that you'll have a pack of fanboys with reference materials rules-lawyering you on every point. It's not as though there isn't a market for 3rd-person robot-blaster games, it just isn't called Battletech.
If you want a prefab fanatical player base, (which you can get by adopting an established franchise universe), be prepared to keep in mind that, so far as the gamers are concerned, it's your job to turn the universe they care about into a game that does it justice. You are just the means. If you can do that, you get the advantage of having the buzz done for you to some extent; but if you try to push against them, they'll quickly take the stance that you aren't doing your job.
The top tier Cool Shot is what the author is saying was pay-to-win. I never used one. I built my mechs to not overheat and thus take advantage of opponents who did.
I've been playing the game for 6 months. It's been fun, but I've just been finding it too repetitive lately. I'd still recommend it to anyone who likes the MechWarrior concept. Just be prepared to spend time on the forums learning how to play, as no tutorial is provided by the developer.
One-sided opinions does not a story make.
shame on us / for all we have done / and all we ever were / just zeroes and ones
How about the part where the guy doing the "Ask the Devs" thread regularly take on questions that he answers with something along the lines of I don't know.
Or that the Community Manager's only apparent contribution is getting big names in the "Let's Play" and Game reviewing to make videos of the game...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIn-im_tWEg Reference Video
Or that instead of a Valve style change log the updates instead focus almost exclusively on purchasable content, there wasn't even a foot note when all the weapon sound effects were changed.
Do I even need to bring up the cluster fuck that is ECM? Bringing in the Raven mech whose role as a dedicated ECM platform is somewhat undercut by the fact that only one of the three versions can mount ECM at all was a bad idea made worse by the fact that ECM was totally overpowered to the point of totally disrupting the team alliance indicators making it impossible to tell who you were shooting at.
Also to remind you the Hero Mech design are Cash money only variants different from any acquired with in game currency that also have a bonus to exp and in game currency.
Really though the main gist of the post is that PGI has failed to keep people happy or to even make enough empty promises to hold off full out rioting, Remember back a few months ago when PGI went ahead and deleted over half the official forums because it was getting unruly, Or we can look at the bottom half of this post http://mwomercs.com/news/2013/08/730-september-creative-developer-update where they admit things are getting so abusive that they are considering calling police on some commentors...
That is not a well managed community, not at all.
I play in a group and have seen several Gold Founders (people who paid $120 to get into the closed beta) walk away in disgust or boredom.
Things are going downhill.
I seem to remember there being a mechwarrior style game on kickstarter that looked really good in videos - now for the life of me I can't track it down. It was a mech style game, but not the mechwarrior brand.
da w00t. mtfnpy?
Sounds like the sad tale of Tribes.
I thought the article said a person could toggle between first and third person. Wasn't that always the case in the Mech games? At least I think I recall that in MechWarrior Mercenaries.
Clever developer would allow people with 1st person view choose if they want to play with 1st person view players only or allow 3rd person view players too. And same option for 3rd person view players.
- Raynet --> .
There was this Mechwarrior-type arcade game from Japan I saw in a Pizza restaurant. I can't remember the game's full name but I was dazzled by the game play effects. It had Mechwarriors movements as fast as the Flash of DC comic books. The player commit strikes that emit light flashes similar to lightning. The user can switch between two perspectives: fighting view from within the Mechwarrior or 3rd person view as in Mortal combat. I can only remember the name contained "Gundam". Do you know of this game? Is there any capture video on youtube of this arcade game?
They were selling all of the mechs people want to play with for cash. The entire stable of mechs. All for sale.
This is very wrong, so much so it must be an intentional lie. Out of 93 'mech variants, only 12 are cash-only. 81 are available for in-game currency.
Can you download and drop into an atlas and go killing? Hell no. You got a very very limited selection of what to do. And what you could do with it.
As a new player, you'll start out in a selection of trial 'mechs while you earn in-game currency to purchase your own 'mech (that you can then customize to your liking for more in-game currency). To facilitate this, you get a rather hefty in-game currency bonus for your first 25 games. At the end of those 25 matches, you'll have enough both to purchase and customize and Atlas, if that's what you want.
Every battle quickly shaped up to be paid players stomping the shit repeatedly out of free players.
Almost the entire point of the mechwarrior series was behind a credit card. Thats not any sort of free to play. That's flat out pay to play
It's also not true. The Hero 'mechs (the cash-only 'mechs) aren't superior to the in-game currency ones, and there's generally not enough of them on a team to make a difference anyway. People generally play in regular, non-Hero 'mechs. What is happening though is that organized teams "stomp the shit" out of disorganized groups of non-team players. But hey, it's a team game.
these people ruined it.
While there's no love lost between me and PGI, they haven't actually ruined the game yet. They seem to do their damndest to get there, but they haven't quite managed yet. At its core, the game is a really great 'mech simulation; it's just all the other bits that suck.
Oh and the fact that it's getting less and less BattleTech with every patch. That sucks really bad as well.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Free-to-play is an awful model, thrust upon gamers because the publishers have decided it must be so. If it can't be online, then it can be pirated, and the notion that there's a nickel in a gamer's pocket that doesn't come to them violates the most dearly-held religious belief of the game companies.
Nobody really likes free-to-play. I don't know anyone for whom it is their first choice of gaming platform. When a gamer hears that some well-known property is coming out as free-to-play, there is a sinking feeling in their collective stomach.
And this physical reaction is very interesting. I've tried a few F2P games, and I find I get an actual nausea from them. One is actually a good game, Planetside 2, but the impossible-to-escape awareness that there's a guy there, tapping you on the shoulder to try to get you to buy something, or to just give him some money, permeates every moment of game-time. If Planetside 2 was a subscription model like Eve, or a dedicated server model, I'd gladly buy the game. But no matter how fun Planetside 2 is (and if you get a good group of people it's a LOT of fun), that nausea never leaves. Whenever you realize that spending another $12 will get you better weapons and armor, and a temporary boost to XP, you get that sick feeling.
Maybe this will change some day, but I see a future with a lot more of these Mechwarrior situations where a community of fans, who have happily PAID MONEY for the game in the past, just decide, "Fuck it" and look for something else to play.
I certainly don't see the me-too, uncreative, group-think that goes on in most game companies giving up on the F2P strategy. They're sold on it and it really doesn't matter what the gamers - the customers- want. It's the way of the world now. There's always another crop of 12 year-olds who will spend time on F2P games but they'll move on to the next one long before serious brand-loyalty comes into effect. If Mechwarrior had started out as F2P, I guarantee that it wouldn't have any "community" to be outraged.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Gah, don't remind me.
Mythic was so bad as a MMO developer they gave rise to the next level of fail after Epic fail: Mythic fail.
And still I played that damn game for 2.5 years...
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
You must have been playing a very different version than I've been playing. Your entire post is so off the mark!
They were selling all of the mechs people want to play with for cash. The entire stable of mechs. All for sale.
The entire stable of mechs are purchasable with real money, yes. However all but a few are only purchasable with real money, and those are only variants of mechs that are available with in game currencies. And the vast majority of those are considered to be sub-par. You can purchase every single chassis with in game currency you earn by playing the game.
Can you download and drop into an atlas and go killing? Hell no.
If an Atlas is one of the trial mechs, then hell yes. If not, then hell yes - after you earn the in game currency to buy one; and with the cadet bonus, that's 25 games.
Almost the entire point of the mechwarrior series was behind a credit card. Thats not any sort of free to play.
I've been playing the game sense closed beta, and I have no idea what the hell you are talking about there.
The entire point of the mechwarrior series?
Do you mean Community warfare? Because that isn't even out yet, so it can't be behind a credit card.
Stompy giant robots blasting each other? That's there and free to play.
Every battle quickly shaped up to be paid players stomping the shit repeatedly out of free players.
No, wrong, wrong, wrong! It wasn't paying players that were stomping free players, it was organized group players stomping PUG drops. Payment had nothing to do with it at all. You didn't need to pay to drop with other players, and paying didn't make you instantly have a group to drop with.
My karma is in a nose dive
And how would you like it if you were on the recieving end of a bait & switch campaign? I imagine you'd be just as pissed off about it, shelling out hard earned cash for one thing and getting something completely different. That's what happened here. Players were baited with an online MechWarrior 3/4, but ended up getting a tactical version of MechAssault.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
only because they sank tons of money in 3d realms for them to sit on there asses and play wow. the only reason the game shipped was they where bought to sue the crap out of 3d realms for breach of contract. they knew the game was incomplete garbage but they also had to make some of there money back. so don't blame them for 3d realms scamming.
That would be the smartest thing to do, but it is likely that there simply isn't enough of a player base to allow that. Not that breaking promises and going against the pillars of design that you used to collect five million dollars from founders won't further erode the player base anyway.
Neither here or there...
Duke Nukem Forever has the stink of development hell all over it.
Compare it to other games that got stuck there and it is pretty similar, Daikatana, Too Human, The Bureau: Xcom declassified, Ailens: Colonial Marines.
After a certain point of time in development a game is guaranteed to ship incomplete and buggy.
I'd expect this sort of thing from House Liao, but from Piranha Games? Ha!
The summary for this is inaccurate, but the article is one of the best articles I have seen thus far explaining the issues. But even then, the article has a few mistakes (albeit minor ones). When ghost heat was first introduced, nobody knew what it was supposed to solve. It didn't affect the dominate meta at the time at all (2 PPC 1 gauss) and only screwed over gimmick builds, canon builds, and legit builds. It was only much later that we got confirmation that it was designed to "fix" boating, which was never even a problem. #savemwo was started around this time because the sniping meta had existed for over 6 months by this time. Everybody thought ghost heat was the attempted fix, so when it turned out to not do anything at all, many of the competitive groups started doing letter writing campaigns to the publisher. A group of players didn't think that writing the publisher would be effective, so #savemwo was started. By the way, PGI finally came up with a game plan to solve the sniping meta. It is called ghost delay and doesn't solve anything
Trademark?
You can also bet that people willing to pay are also willing to put in more effort to create more organized and skilled teams. Fact it, they dedicate more to the game, so they are better at it.
Really? Cause when you drop, there's no one using it. This article is so full of crap it's not funny. Nice try #saveMWO but you're little crusade is failing.
Sounds like the fanbase funded it, or funded some ego anyway.
Investigations and lawsuits should follow.
If I pay for something, bastard, you best give it to me or I will walk off with a soiled knife and your yarbles in my pocket.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Wait, I'm confused. I played mw4 but not mwo. After reading the article it seems to me there is that cool shot item ( how long to grind that out?) that makes alpha striking better than ever. 3rd person jump sniping further supports that. I stopped playing mw4 due to disliking the hill humpping and jump sniping alpha strike gameplay. I see that as a bad thing IMHO, but others might enjoy it I guess...but why was mw4 jump sniping bad vs mwo jump sniping being good?
Not play it differently -- play a different game. Enormous difference.
They took the money promising one thing, and pulled the rug out from under the very people who funded it .
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
No, you're just a stupid asshole.
I avoid these situations by paying for a product only after it has been fully developed, or in a state where I'm content and can keep with.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
According to IGP/PGI Billing its not. as per the refund request I sent them, and this email I received: http://pastebin.com/89jGXvFg
There is no reason, in this day and age, that developers need to be making massive game destroying mistakes like this. There are many business models out there that skirt the "pay to win" boundary without crossing it that they could have copied (see LoL, Eve, PS2, etc). It's just incompetence on the part of the developers.
Actually there is not a single p2w item in the game. You can get all the consumables with in game currency as well, though it does take a while to grind the skills to have the cbill (ingame) versions just as good as the mc (pay-currency) versions.
Aside from that you can buy "hero" and "champion" mechs, which have a cbill or experience bonus respectivly. No in-match advantages though, just makes grinding faster, similiar to "premium time" which lets you gain cbills and experience faster.
The only item you definately need to buy if you play this game after a while are "mech-bays". You only have 4 of those at the start of the game, and assuming you want more than 4 mechs you need to buy more.
I agree that's a complete dick move on their part. But when you see "We may, from time to time at our sole discretion and without notice or liability, create, amend, change, or delete any content from the IGP Offerings." at the top of their terms, that should raise a *huge* red flag before you reach for your wallet in the first place.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Battletoads Online!
The other part of it being a dick move is them denying refunds based on it not being crowdsourcing when IGP's CEO was saying that it WAS a crowdsourcing profram everywhere someone would listen: http://www.vg247.com/2012/10/30/mechwarrior-online-to-be-a-lot-better-thanks-to-crowdfunding/ "Speaking to Gamasutra, Infinite Game Publishing parent company boss Nick Foster said that MechWarrior Online was traditionally funded at first, but then used crowdfunding to make up any shortfalls. “We’ve raised minimal investment funds to build a viable product for each of our games. We then launch it [in beta] and use that minimum viable product to start generating an income stream,” he said. “We keep a very close partnership with our developers and use that income to reinvest in the game, build out the features that the users want, and head into a period of ongoing development. New content, new features. “The product will be a lot better for players because of the crowdfunding. It’s allowed us to maintain a higher level of ongoing development in the product, than if we were waiting for momentum to build immediately after going live. In the next few months, we’ll be able to release a lot more features.” http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/180401/ MechWarrior Online's long-awaited open beta begins today, partially made possible by a successful crowdfunding initiative that's raised over $5 million, without the help of Kickstarter. http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/10/29/mechwarrior-online-the-story-of-how-one-mmo-got-crowd-funded-wi/ "Nick Foster, CEO of Infinite Game Publishing's parent company 7G Entertainment, explained some of the rationale behind this approach to funding. "The product will be a lot better for players because of the crowdfunding. It's allowed us to maintain a higher level of ongoing development in the product than if we were waiting for momentum to build immediately after going live. In the next few months, we'll be able to release a lot more features." http://www.crowdsourcing.org/article/mechwarrior-onlines-unconventional-crowdfunding-pays-off/20390 "The success of the Founder's Program reinforces IGP's vision to help independent developers build exceptional games with the right economic model for the global marketplace," says IGP CEO Nick Foster. http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/29/the-first-of-three-major-titles-from-igp-mechwarrior-online-moves-into-its-open-beta-test/
The GP is making a serious effect to misinform Slashdot. Literally NOTHING he posted is true. There is a subset of the userbase that I believe is intentionally trying to tank the game through misinformation after they realized that PGI is not going to make the game exactly the way thy want (#SAVEMWO). They are children who refuse to acknowledge that compromise in game making happens.
As StJobe said, there have been decisions made by PGI I dont agree with, but all the crap posted in the GP is just dead wrong.
MWO is a good game with the potential to be a great game. Will it get there....I don't know. I hope so, but there are serious hurdles. IF the Community Warfare plays out well and fairly quickly after launch, I think ti will have along life.....if it flops or suffers further delays...not so much.
Apparently when a Dev says something will happen (no #pV) and 9 months later they Devs change their minds, it is now considered 'oath breaking'
This is the same logic that people use to say that when a politician says he is for something, then is presented evidence of that position being wrong and changes it, that said politician is wishy washy.
Changing your mind when presented with evidence is a GOOD thing.
After reading the article it seems to me there is that cool shot item ( how long to grind that out?)
It costs 15k GXP (one time XP cost) to upgrade coolshot-9 modules into coolshot 9x9 modules which are identical to the coolshot 18 (pay currency version).
At around 50-100 GXP per match (~8 minutes) thats about 20-40h of playing the game to be able to upgrade it. Its not used much though (there are non-consumable modules which are better on basicly every build).
Yeah, I saw that mentioned in the last line of the email. I didn't realize they were abusing the community so badly.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
Given most of what you said is flat out incorrect or a lie I find it hard to believe you are a founder. I am also a founder and have recently quit the game but you are still full of shit.
They have been reading to many BattleTech novels (aka Game of Thrones IN SPACE).
I seen this coming months ago.
I actually feel sorry for the Founders. PGI promised a specific game which players funded with a 5+million Kickstarter, yet, it seems greed and money has taken over PGI.
Its the same story with most "beta F2P" games.
When the market isnt big enough, simply change the game, ignore your previous funding to reach the bigger market.
PGI has either become greedy, or, the current MWO player base is at its maximum limit and PGI has burnt their money.
"but they need to make money". Doesnt even come into it.
PGI knows how big the MechWarrior market is from the kickstarter. They just couldn't be bothered to make a game whilst sticking to that level of funding.
Now, they want more, even if it means slapping founders in the face.
I have no respect for PGI.
I played MWO for months a while back and all i seen in progress was new mechs which cost £20 a pop:
- There were no bug fixes for months (the broken/missing hud bug which required you to leave the game)
- Scripts.Pak showed me everything i needed to know about their lack of programming skills. More references to nano suits than mechs. (unencrypted, opens in zip)
- An apology post from a dev who cant even be bothered to use paragraphs, let alone acknowledge the fact they are slapping most founders in the face. Says it all really.
MWO really is a prime example of poor development with one goal, money. Theres no love, or, devotion from PGI anymore and it shows.
They dont care about the previous 5+million founder injection, or, the promises they made.
This really is why you shouldn't pump money into a idea/company with bad previous reputation. You'll only be disappointed, i was.
Yeah, this is likely the last beta ill ever do. Or at least the first and last of anything that I put money into before its launched
So if it is useless why add it then? All it does is piss off the people who wanted a sim, which is what they were sold. And now, it is no longer that game. Of course they are pissed.
A simple fix would be to allow players to simply get put into different battle/match queues by selecting a choice of:
A) "only play with people with 1st person view"
B)"only play with people using 3rd person view"
C) "play with both 1st person and 3rd person views available to all players in the match"
Wow! An amazing concept that doesn't alienate the people who funded you to begin with while still allowing you to add a "feature" which might bring more diverse people to the game.
But really if you as me, this is probably the final straw for many people. They put up with a lot of stupid crap already, a lot of which hasn't even been mentioned in the article. I personally didn't put up with it and stopped playing and got my refund on the original founders pack when they pushed out the game WAY before it was ready. They also have all kinds of balancing issues to this very day (one of the things mentioned in the article) because the developers of the game have no clue how to simply use the already balanced weapons in the Battletech/Mechwarrior Universe and apply them into a video game. The reason there is a need for "Cool Shot" is because they have the heat cycle for weapons at INSANE levels compared to the actual universe rules. There are hundreds of mech configurations in the universe which you simply cannot make in the video game because the heat is so high that you need 5-6 times the number of heatsinks that it should take to cool it. That equates to all lost weight which would be used for weapons or armor, and in many cases simply means you can't be heat stable when it should be, which is because they wanted to SELL you "Cool Shot".
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
I'm just nitpicking here, but I think you mistakenly said Battletech when I figure you meant MechWarrior.
Specifically, BattleTech has ALWAYS been some sort of 3rd person tactics game, whether tabletop or the old Crescent Hawk games.
MechWarrior, on the other hand, has been anything from a Mech Simulator ( which , funnily enough, was Multi-Player BattleTech 3025), semi-casual simulators such as the MechWarrior games, or arcade shooters such as the MechAssault games - as well as the original pen and paper MechWarrior..
These developers originally said it would follow the mold of something like Multi-Player BattleTech 3025, which was more mech combat simulator, and in effect may be turning it into something in between that and MechWarrior 4 (a more arcade/casual MechWarrior).
The problem with the franchise itself is that over the years the lines have been blurred between what was BattleTech (turn-based strategy) and what was MechWarrior.
For BattleTech, you have the old Crescent Hawk and Mech Commander games.
For MechWarrior, though, there was never just one type of digital game. It kinda went all over the grid, from the original MechWarrior, to the more casual MW2-MW4 to the very arcadish MechAssault games. MPBT3025 was really close to THE online mech combat simulator game before it got canceled. MechWarrior Tactics (another current online game) blurs the name in the other direction - it really should have been call Battletech.
tldr; You are right about the fanbase and the developers. The developers are indeed changing the game into something different than originally projected, however the MechWarrior and BattleTech franchises have really lost most of their meaning over the decades since their original conception, with lines very blurry between the two 'different' aspects of the same game universe.
I have been a fan of both BattleTech and MechWarror over the years. I enjoyed the pen and paper/miniatures versions of the games and various incarnations of the video games. I love the Crescent Hawk series as good BattleTech play.. I loved the origina MechWarrior and settled for the MechWarrior 2 -4 games (not a really big fan of 4, too fast-paced and arcady for me) and my favorite was probably MultiPlayerBattleTech3025 (which was canceled).
At its core, the game is a really great 'mech simulation; it's just all the other bits that suck.
It isn't a really great 'mech simulation. It is a good robot simulation that pretents to call things with the same names as in the Battletech Universe. But don't think for one second that the things in MWO act or work like the things named the same way from Battletech, because they don't. As such, it is pointless to call this game "Mechwarrior" and be a licensed property of Battletech. Absolutely nothing is correct and true to the Battletech Universe, which has lead to all the balance issues that the developers have released countless patch after patch after patch to try and "fix" the new "problem" they created for themselves when there would have been no issue had they simply followed the rules to begin with. But no, we can't follow rules that have been balanced over the course of 30 years, we're the developers, we know better....
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Specifically, BattleTech has ALWAYS been some sort of 3rd person tactics game
Bzzt! You're forgetting the BattleTech Virtual World pods. So no. Not "always".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
If you are expecting a full sized pickup to haul around your gaming fun and end up with a compact car. The ones who said they were delivering the truck have a lot of explaining to do especially if you put money in ahead of time.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
I agree that's a complete dick move on their part. But when you see "We may, from time to time at our sole discretion and without notice or liability, create, amend, change, or delete any content from the IGP Offerings." at the top of their terms, that should raise a *huge* red flag before you reach for your wallet in the first place.
I don't know about your jurisdiction, but mine has "unfair contract terms" legislation. One of the Act's cited examples of a term which is unfair and therefore not enforceable in any contract is a term which:
Quoting from government advice on interpretation of this law:
If you have similar legislation in your jurisdiction, you may want to challenge the decision not to supply what you paid for in court. You may be entitled not just to a refund, but also compensation.
IANAL; this is not legal advice; consult a legal professional before commencing court proceedings; etc.
The reality is that the "Hater Community" got their panties in a twist when PGI didn't "kow tow" to their demands ... that "Haters" predicted the changes would kill the game, which they didn't, and now they are basically forced to double-down and spread even more negativity.
I play at the competitive level, and the game is in the best shape it has been in so far ... there is one big outstanding issue (HSR/Hit Detection) that once fixed will make MWO a solid platform ... There is still lots of stuff that needs to be done, but from a "how does the game play", it's in great shape.
As far as the haters issues? Blown way out of proportion. The "real money" item? called "cool shot" ... and can be purchased with "free money" ... can only be used once per match, and rarely, if ever, affects the outcome of a match. Cool Shot is Manufactured crisis 1. "Ghost Heat" is a mechanic that limits how many weapons of a certain type you can fire at once ... you can still equip them, you just have to be careful how you use them. It has virtually stopped the worst abuses as it was intended and made the actual game experience better then before. Ghost Heat is Manufactured crisis 2. "Third Person View" (3PV) was added to the game to help new players ... and it can do that. It's rarely used and generally only by n00b players and is NEVER seen in competitive 12v12 games. It's really a non-issue as far as the game is concerned. "3PV" is manufactured crisis 3.
In the end, the only people the haters are really hurting is their friends and the rest of the community. Nobody I knows spends any times at all in the official forums or in other places like reddit because of all the hate these twits are spewing. Right now, the best thing that can happen for the game is if the Haters would STFU and GTFO and go bother some other game ... that is the #1 thing that would help MWO right now.
Yeah, those should have been branded as Mechwarrior, rather than BattleTech. They were entertaining. Expensive though. And as arcadey as arcade games get. Worse than Mechwarrior 4 (which is infamous even among Mechwarrior player, let alone hard core BattleTech fans).
Title says it all. The author seems to say he speaks for the community. Yet the game keeps growing and growing. Third person view is OPTIONAL and removable with 1 keystroke. The community has been asking for this option. The game is free to play. Free to Win as well. They are offering options, is all. You can earn them in game, or quicker through micro-transactions. just like every other free to play game. PGI seems to be a good company, as well as a socially conscious company. They just completed a charity campaign where the players were able to puchase a specially designed and skinned mech for $10 US. Every single penny of that ten bucks was given to the Canadian Cancer Society in the name of one of the player's daughter, Sarah, who passed away from cancer. the child used to play with her father. They designed the skin with some cute things just for her. And 15k players, including myself, bought one. Over 150k US donated. That's saying a lot. The author is smoking crack. Must be, because he's sprouting nonsense.
Actually. No they shouldn't.
Up until MW4, they were a completely separate product from the MechWarrior brand.
It was only with MW4 that the products co-mingled. Mainly because it wasn't until then that consumer-grade video cards were powerful enough to rival the custom-made setups previously used in BT pod construction. Essentially MW4 started as a back-port of the VWE BattleTech engine to a consumer-grade setup (I've actually seen some of the backporting they'd done for the Red Planet game).
Then a bunch of the changes made in the system were back-ported into the VWE system, which emerged as "Firestorm".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This is why I don't fund anything on Kickstarter.
Make the product first and then try to sell it, not "Gimme money while I promise the sun and the stars and still work on it..."
You're right. I had remembered them when I wrote the reply, but did not think to mention them as an exception, which I should have.
Thanks for driving my point home with that.
With those included now, I guess the video game versions of BattleTech and MechWarrior could probably include everything from turn-based strategy, first person simulation, to arcade action robot fighting.
With video games concerned, the basic definition of a MechWarrior or Battletech game nowadays across the board is something with big robots fighting each other, which could include the playstyles of games like Armored Core, Robotech (that one's obvious since they shared IP previously), or even Virtual-On (see MechAssault), but with the BattleTech/MechWarrior IP (either the current or the Harmony Gold stuff they borrowed back in the day).
The only sense of separation between MechWarrior and Battletech has to be with the tabletop/pen and paper versions. As for video games, well, I guess anything goes.
meh, to correct myself again... I forgot to mention the Wizkids MechWarrior line which does actually blur the lines between the two non-video game systems..
so yeah.. BattleTech/MechWarrior is just as much MechAssault as it is MPBT3025. The only thing that really matters is which form of gameplay on that scale the developers had in mind...though that apparently can change on a whim too :-)
In any event, there has never been even a hint of a reason to believe that PGI has any interest in learning from the successes and failures of anyone else, that they have any interest in listening to or heeding the demands of the community - without whom there is no reason for their game to exist, and so this should be their highest priority - or has any desire to do anything but milk the Mechwarrior property - that they muscled a large team of devoted volunteer developers out of making a free game in because they were intimidated by their ability to produce high-quality work for free - of all the money they can.
As for Garnaralf's diatribe above:
The fact that it's selling means nothing. It's the first commercial Mechwarrior game - a series with hundreds of novels to its credit and a fan base spanning 30 years - since the atrocity that was MechAssault (aka MechAssFault or MechsAsFail) so it was unquestionably going to attract a large number of downloads (which means nothing. I presume they count my player account towards their playerbase, and I've never actually done anything more than register my user name) and user registrations. Making a game free to play also means nothing, and has no reflection on the goodness of the company making it: it's a viable business model, nothing more.
The LONGSTANDING Mechwarrior community (almost 30 years old now) has by and large shown nothing but hate and derision for 3rd Person Views, at the very least since Mechwarrior IV, where it was well known to be a game ruiner: the MWLL team patently refused to consider it; 90% of MWO's players, by PGI's own polls, said they did not want a 3rd Person View, and made it clear that if there was to be such a mode, they did not want to play in the same match as other people using it due to the fact that it breaks immersion, changes the tactical mechanic, and provides an unfair advantage to those using it over those who don't. So what did PGI do? Ignore them, implement it anyway, then lied about separating 1st/3rd person players into different matches, repeatedly: that's not the sign of a "good company". I'm not sure what else you're basing your assessment on besides the fact that they make a game of which you are clearly a player, but if anyone needs to put down the crack pipe and do a more thorough investigation of reality, it's probably you.
Where was PGI's social consciousness BEFORE a player's daughter passed from cancer that obviously resulted in a social media campaign that they elected to pile on to to improve their image? You *do* realize that they get a HUGE tax break for that, right? The amount of money a game earns for a charity by pulling on players heartstrings and offering them up something that took almost no effort or time on their part (did I mention I'm a texture artist with significant CryEngine experience as well as friends and professional contacts at CryTek? There is, maybe 20 minutes of texture work, *tops*, on that Jenner, and 5 minutes of XML to edit the weapons config, plus 10 minutes to commit it to the build) in return for that charity donation is also not an indicator of a company's goodness: how much of their own profits did they donate? How much did the owner and executive officers pony up out of their own pockets? How much is the company going to be donating - regardless of charities - to cancer prevention every year from now on?
No, without going into excessive detail or listing my qualifications (I know I have them, I was there, I was involved),
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
My comment was in reference to the experience, not the software lineage or the hardware required. BT pods played like MechWarrior, not Battletech.