The people playing MWO are generally quite nice bunch of people, but the game by design, is not conducive to meeting people to play with, everyone you drop with is single serving. Unless you go outside the game to find other people to play with, you basically will not have much chance of finding people to play with. In other shooters etc there are different interfaces but generally revolves around picking an open lobby and launching. If people are good/nice in lobby you stay chat a bit between games and then play the next round, if not you bounce out and find another. It is not uncommon to play for hours in one lobby. In MWO there are no provisions for this. If you are on your own, you get dropped in with 23 random people if you are lucky and the game starts. kill some stuff game ends, half the people have left as soon as they die and everyone else disconnects once the results page comes up. if you are still there 20 seconds later, you get thrown out. Next time, 23 new random people and so on. I understand there is weight and skill balancing and so forth, but I am pretty sure that something could be done to work that out.. I have tried finding clans online, but I live in a timezone that is not really aligned with mass populations. And the ones I did find are all playing other games now. While i have my rant on I will also point out how utterly horrible the social pane of the client is, I know nothing new, but seriously, this is 2013 not 1990. Surely someone at PGI has played an online game and seen how things should be done. I really like the game, but matchmaking seems to have decided my optimal role is watching my teammates licking the front glass of their cockpit. And the chances of finding people to play with through the game client is nearly non existent, I find playing somewhat bittersweet. On the one hand I like the combat, I like loading out my mechs and tweaking builds, but on the other I dont enjoy the random window lickers. I know people will be reading this and thinking 'quit QQ and find a clan' and maybe i should, but I come from a non-mechwarrior background so this just ramblings of a relative newb, but if I feel this way, chances are we are shedding players newer than I am for similar reasons. There are others which are probably well documented, but the more players that come, play and stay, the better it is for everyone . Well, that is the end of my wall of text.
Actually in many regards you are quite right. PGI does have a big vision for the game but they are delivering at a rate which is actually hurting their game more than helping it; whether by design or necessity we don't know. We've all seen the posts saying they want to add a "pre-drop lobby" and tune weight matching and skill balancing a little bit plus they want to add new game modes and new content and UI 2.0 etc. etc. Can they do it? It is simply a question of biting off a lot; all we can do is hope they can chew that bite before people say "Mmmmmm fuck it, I'm outtie". While I am not a doomsayer, and I do love the Mechwarrior Universe, I am starting to see a lot more people claiming they are "refugees from MWO" on other game boards.
Folks talking about this stuff out in the open finally gives me some hope. Maybe, just maybe PGI will start listening to the players voice of reason.
Well, I don't know about "out in the open" but HERE people are encouraged to talk about things; whether we agree or disagree. Forums are about conversation, debate (healthy debate) and discourse. Shinning a white knight light doesn't make problems go away LOL
I was drunk when I upped my Elite founder's pack to Legendary. But I bought Overlord and Saber stone sober. I'm balls deep into MWO and I'm not pulling out any time soon. Yeah I might fall asleep on top but I am still firmly and deeply inside. Mason knows what I'm talking about.
A game lobby is definitely needed. But I have to say that MWO is mostly marketed as a mech FPS. As such it is seen by many as a giant mech doing Halo and CoD stuff. We know it is different, but it is true that this is more FPS than things like MMO as far as the game directing towards in reality, despite how things are said about CW and what not. It may not be a bad thing, but even for an FPS you need more interaction between players. I am not looking for a huge amount of interactions, seeing those pieces of sh*ts lurking around in the official forums makes me think more than twice before I even think of talking to any one of them. I am not saying there are no group people, but from what I see most people lurking there are just people I can happily do without interacting to. But at least a lobby or even a crappy chatroom where you can call people up to drop together would be nice. As for clans, not joining one cause I hate taxes (fuck IRS, and yes I will say it again and again)
Let's be honest: all pug gameplay in all games (Dota and clones, multiplayer FPSes) is not really social. It's not so much the design that is the problem as the UI. * Adding friends that you meet in-game is a chore. * Chatting with friends only works out-of-game, and not very well at that. * In-game chat is beyond terrible. * No built-in VOIP. * No lobby and no private matches. UI 2.0 is far overdue. But never having worked with CryEngine before, I don't know how much of this is due to the limitations of the engine and how much of it is due to just lack of time spent on designing and implementing the UI.
MWO was working on VOIP at one point. But everyone who used it hated it. I'm not sure if they are seeking other options or just dropped it entirely. But even in games with excellent VOIP players don't use it. The perfect example is Planetside 2. Not only is the quality of the in-game VOIP excellent but it is automatically split up; different buttons for communicating with your squad, platoon, unit, and publicly within a small radius. It was great. But a lot of people opted to mute it. Why? Because every unit I played with had their own private teamspeak. From the giant groups to the small 10-15 man groups they all did this. And I'm not talking about the few units I had joined or was considering joining myself during my time playing, I'm also talking about the couple of groups that I got random squad invites because I happened to be working with them at a base that day. They would tell me "Hey man, we're all on Teamspeak. Here is the info..." and I'd hop on no questions asked. So fuck in-game VOIP. I like it in Planetside because of the massive battles and the fact that there are ALWAYS random people that might save your bacon one second and be gone the next. But a small-scale game like MWO doesn't need it. I'd rather PGI spent development time on something else.
Players use VOIP in TF2 and Dota 2. Yes, there are issues with abuse of VOIP, but it's far easier to communicate things quickly with it compared to text typing. I've gotten killed multiple times from trying to type stuff out. Also, that's another problem - no good way to report other players for being dicks.
Not to be a jerk, but the UI is part of the design, and in most games that I have played there is a chance to be social ahead of time, even if it is just voting on a map to drop into. Pickup game or otherwise. PGI's bigest problem in my opinion is they are too focused on producing usless buyable content, instead of working on the actual game. Sad to say it, but it is part of the free to play model. I apologize by the way, I agree with your post, I'm just being a cynic today for some reason. Probably because I'm not enjoying the game, or PGI's seeming lack of focus towards improving what has the potential to be something great.
PUG games in almost every game I have played have been crap due to the lack of communication. With the lack of familiarity, in regards to your team mates, a lot of people tend not to be extroverted enough reach out and make voice communication a priority and then you get a breakdown in focused teamwork. There simply isn't any real way to FORCE it upon players. If you institute VOIP you get 12 year old kids screaming into your ears saying you suck noob and all that kinda crap. If you have chat it takes too long to type anything before you get killed so that limits chatting in game etc. Its a systemic problem with people and not necessarily with games.
No offense taken =) I just tend to separate UI design from game(play) design even though it obviously has a huge impact on user experience because they're fairly independent.
It's funny- some games, the Voip is useful and nice, but nobody uses it. Others, it's absolute rubbish or nonexistant, but is really needed. For example- Blacklight:Retribution has Voip- but nobody actually knows about it. There's been a ton of times I've been PUGging in that game, and use the push-to-talk to communicate enemy info with my team, and they're typing in chat "Who's that speaking? How're they doing that?"- I let them know what the push-to-talk button is, and they start using it, and we all have a blast getting to know each other better and beating the pants off the other team. It really depends on the community, I think.
I think the matches are simply too fast/quick to start some serious communication and especially since there is no respawn its quite tricky to type and survive.... quite often "loads at E6" is all i can type (after escaping the all stuff which has been shot at me) when im scouting with my Jenners. A lobby would be agreat idea - a place where ppl can meet and form drops. Some sort of "ice breaker" - many people are just too shy to speak on TS as long as they dont know anyone.
I don't see why they can't have a game cycle onto another game with the same set of players instead dropping people off to the menu. And perhaps add an option to select which mech to drop in, cause hell I do not want to run my energy boat in Caustic or Therma. If you got the option to play with the same set of strangers a lot, then you'll get more social with them. Back when we actually had to repair mechs, well yeah. Kinda understandable that you gotta go back and sort out your damages. But now? Heck what year is it and how long as multiplayer gaming been around. The lack of such rudimentary features is quite appalling while we get ludicrously priced IAPs and silly analogies to picking up tabs at bars. VOIPs can be a start. Sure it can be abused, but the option to mute players should always be handy. Whether or not it's used well by people or leads to more team effort is another matter. The point is the option should at least exist within the game. The same PUGs who aren't up for socializing well within the game sure aren't going to go out of the way to find out of game options.
Don't you think "MWO design is shallow" would've been a more apt title for this thread? It is, in fact, an online game; it can't actually be antisocial... unless... well, what if the game was just nothing more than a Testing Grounds >.
