#MWO 2013 State Of The Inner Sphere (Russ Bullock Speaks)

ORIGINAL POST: http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/145200-2013-state-of-the-inner-sphere/ (this link DID work but the post no longer seems to be there?)

 

What a total crock of SHIT! :angry:

 

I don't understand why you are so mad Vergere. This is fucking fantastic news to me. Once U.I. 2.0 comes out, I'll be sold to spend a bit on clans! Hell, I might even allow myself bigger leeway when it comes to funding! This is the exactly the response I was looking for from PGI. Believe what you want but this franchise and me are sticking around and I'm supporting it.

 

(Weary disillusioned MechWarrior) Sorry to say PGI... the proof is in the pudding...... where is the pudding?
(PGI) it's virtual golden pudding, very valuable.
(Weary disillusioned MechWarrior) Where does it go when you disappear because you got so greedy everyone left?
(PGI) Look, It's gold.

MWO 2013 State Of The Inner Sphere

 

Quit it with the rage and look at the facts. They have given us a reasonable outline for a good game to come. If they don't meet it, then you can rage. Plus the cockpit glass is just that fine tuning that everyone is asking for, and that comes from the artist department more than the engineers. Plus like they said they have a team of 50+ guys and they are expanding, so expect more rapid development. Listen to what they are asking, which is patience, and take their words with a grain of salt. If they do not deliver, then you can tell them how badly they fucked up, but right now they are doing the best they can with a bitchy and non helpful fan base, and a small dev squad. Money is not so much the issue anymore, plus they have developer licenses for BT for a few more years! And maybe more. Instead of looking at the shit like its the only thing there, put the shit and the awesomeness into perspective together and decide from there. I'm not saying they don't owe us, but at least they are saying that they are willing to listen. And if they don't, then they just lose the most money they could have made off of this franchise.

 

I'm with you Vergere, gold plated turds worth nuthing if the game folds...at least I did get to sell my magic the gathering cards for a nice profit...The game had a huge following building into this last summer... we lost 50% of the founders and countless newcomers do to issues like 3rd person and other failures...timelines and priorities like cockpit glass we don't want or need... What we wanted was a game polished with community warfare steeped in Battletech lore, with a real honest Game Day launch..they shoulda left the Beta label on this game and not launched it to a joke of fanfare.. its what it is in truth..

 

So today is Patchday? Damn i'll be back home at tomorrow night from my business trip.

Well, i don't flame but wait until UI2.0 and CW begins. Have waited so long, doesn't matter for me to wait some more months. But i don't buy the present Clan Packages. They are for the impatient ones. And Gold-Mechs for the Rich boyz, who want to show their long dicks. If they have the money to feed PGI, why not? We should thank those Kind of fans.

 

I think the only materialistic regret I have in my life is selling my old vintage MTG a long time ago, honestly. Especially in the face of what video games have become. In fact I think one of the reasons I try and record game footage and make clips or whatever these days is for myself, in the future... at least I'll have something sorta tangible to wax nostalgia over long after the servers/patches/population is gone, better yet, when the itself game won't even run on Windows 2020 etc etc...

 

Many of us predict that PGI will fail next year and losing so many (older) players. I don't believe they are out of money, or that they fail next year. If Community Wars starts and Clan Invasion starts, and they do a smarter marketing strategy, many new players with cheap uptodate Hardware will enter the battlefield. The next big thing they have to realize is providing worldwide tournamentships. MWO as E-Sport. But a lot of bugfixes and Balances need to be done. But if Bullock tells truth about investing into larger staff, i think it's just a matter of time. As long as we don't spend too much money we can still have a good Christmas Holidays (maybe with other games! Psssh! I still need to play Fallout 3 New Vegas )

 

Way too small for QA, marketing, and community management

Really?

Hmm...


In my opinion not enough QA and developers/engineers. Too much staff on "Pay Us" content. Nothing surprising here.

 

Agreed. Where is Garth? He hasn't even logged in to their forums in like 2 weeks. He is a paid employee of a gaming company? Hell this is a free site and Grimm is here daily. Every single fucking day if I write something wrong he moderates it and he deals with the assclowns on MechSpecs and the community here. They should hire him for the job because shit would get done or at the very least he would be visible and reachable and not playing Twitch streams with those clowns from NGNG.

We've all heard rumors of player testers and we all know NGNG is on the payroll of PGI (contract or not) and act as their mouthpieces to the community. Hell even some of the "official" videos are player generated content which probably was purchased at a fraction of the cost. They have player moderators (I think Michael one of them) who probably don't get paid shit, they have player Q&A who probably just lap up whatever the Dev team puts in front of them. There is definitely an inner circle of sycophants who are a large part of why this game is where it is right now; because they won't say "No, this shit doesn't work man, fix it".

This is a project management disaster! No matter which way you approach it! Under staffed, poorly lead and even more poorly represented to the community.

 

IMO about staffing,
Seems like a reasonable allocation of staff to me. Sure the QA group is a bit small, but they need to pump out content that people will buy in order to make money. Just because the game is free doesn't mean the team is made of volunteers. They have to continually release content that encourages players to invest real money, what is so surprising there?

Overall,
I'm very happy with this announcement and looking forward to my birthday in April!

Vergere,
I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in MWO because of a soundtrack... Guild Wars, Elder Scrolls, and other RPGs are where soundtracks become more important to a game and immersing its players. Star Citizen for example is planned to be an RPG, so a soundtrack is more important. MWO which is considered a "Thinking person's shooter". Shooter games are not reliant on soundtracks...

Pacific Rim OST is good enough for me... or Akira OST... or whatever I feel like listening to to get my blood pumping.

 

QA is the problem here, pumping out content without enough testing. And that is one of the problems about paying high prices for poorly tested products, not just MWO, any product on the market.

I would gladly pay for services at a slow rate if I know they take great care in QA before release. Maybe I am a different consumer than most, but I like quality before quantity.

 

If you haven't tried this yet I recommend it. In the right mech your footsteps match the beat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxopViU98Xo

 

I basically ignore anything about CW and clans and such, not happening for another half a year.
Soundtrack I don't care about also, I usually shut off the sound during fps, it helps me identify the sounds better, and real battlefields don't have music anyways.

As for "And, it PROVES where their priorities are; Visuals, Maps, and Mechs and Gameplay Balance. NOT Bug's, Fixes, or Community response."

I think Game Balance is one of the most important things, so I will give them that. In a way that goes for maps and game modes too.

I am annoyed by their lack of focus on fixes and bugs though, the UI is buggy, the framerate is unstable, and the lag spikes.

I don't care much about visuals, and music, but running the game smooth is important. That means no waiting 3 minuts for a match amd have 3-4 disconnects in it, or getting bug-kicked out of a game, or sudden ultra drop in framerates.

As said, nothing in it is surprising.

 

Well, as of this patch, apparently we have some inklings of a soundtrack?

Now, that said... While the state of the union address, as well as the "Plan" site gives me some hope. I understand why people are pissed off. UI2.0 and CW were both supposed to be out before the game left Open Beta. Hell, it was supposed to be just a couple of months *into* Open Beta. Then we find out, it wasn't until recently that there was a plan for CW, and UI2.0 has been delayed until 2014.

My biggest fear for the various things in the plan actually falls on the efficiencies revamp. The possibility of a more robust skill tree are interesting, but my fear is that they'll make me grind more to get what I already have. Fear thought: "Coolrun doubled by Elites... nope. Not anymore, sucka'! Now you have to grind XPs out to get the Coolrun 2nd tier... and 3rd tier... and 4th tier... to get your old Coolrun doubled."

 

Supporting PGI at this point on is like burning money.



Those of you that still think they will deliver anything tangible in april/may 2014 are naive.
Be prepared to be disappointed once again, and again.