Leave of Absence

Some of you may have noticed I have not posted here for a little over a week. There is a combination of factors, but the short of it is I am no longer able to commit the time to this blog to keep it regular. For that, I am sorry, but I figured you should know.

Honestly, MW:O has a lot of potential, but most of that is not being realized at the moment. I could continue to talk about how statements about future patch notes are not reflective of what those patches contain over and over, but that doesn't seem much fun. On top of that I have accepted a much more active leadership position within my group on EVE Online, and so have had next to no time to dedicate to MW:O. Sorry folks, but it happens.

I hope you all enjoyed my posts.  I may come back and continue to contribute what I can. I may also start an EVE blog, who knows. Either way, see you on the battle field.

If you are interested in EVE Online, or play it and are interested in FW. Please feel free to contact me.

If you want quality MW:O blogs, I recommend my friends over at TheMittani.com. They seem to be doing a stellar job!

Under the Rug

New features and announcements are always great for games. Hype drives this industry more than most anything, and PGI knows it. Five million dollars was raised for MW:O through the founders program, many of whom bought in in order to join the closed beta. That means that a fair chunk of the five million dollars was raised by people who had no idea what they were actually buying, only that it was MechWarrior, it was going to be free 2 play, and there were Atlai. That is the power of a little hype.

However hype can be dangerous, while it is great to announce this grand new thing, sometimes things don’t work out quite like they supposed to. In that event a development team must come forward and inform people about the error, or never mention it at all, and hope for the best. Sadly, the later seems to be a fairly common strategy, even though in a day of fanatic bloggers with little to talk about such things rarely go unnoticed.

One thing is true about the transition to open beta, PGI has become far more focused on the here and now, and have all but lost sight on the future roadmap, at least publically. Many of the things that came out of the first open beta patch were simply to address the concerns of the moment, with disregard to long term objectives. This is compounded by the fact that we have gone from a roadmap that laid out content up to three months in the future, the majority of the discussion has shifted to a one to two week scope. Part of this is because the player base has become so impassioned about things, and so demanding on the one week cycle, the addressing concerns is taking up a fair chunk of the development cycle. Another cause is likely the flurry of stuff there is to talk about now, almost makes looking forward moot.

However, throughout this process it has been easy for PGI to allow things to slip away, and vanish into the aether. This gives them the ability to drop the feature, or take their time outside of the three month plan they originally established. In some of these cases the playerbase have lost sight of it in the midst of LRMs, Gauss, and DHS issues. With others however, a small sect of the player base have continued to meddle, and ask about things “best left alone” and PGI have responded with deafening silence. In the midst of AMA’s and Ask the Devs, one question continues to be asked, but never addressed, and I feel that this is a valid time to add my voice to the call for the answer to the question of Doctor Who? Direct X 11.

Little history lesson: At some point in late September it was asked on the forums “When are we getting DX 11?” This question was responded to by PGI with “October 2^nd.” Now for those of you who can remember, October 2^nd was the day that the monster patch was originally designed to release (the one that was latter to be referred to as “Patchmas”). Nearly a month went by before that patch finally was released, and with it the new CryEngine. However, no DX11 was anywhere to be seen.

So where did it go? Was the report that it was coming a mistake, confusing the new engine for DX11 support? Did something go wrong? Clearly PGIs understanding of the new engine has been incomplete (it takes them over two weeks to tweak bloom levels). Is DX11 coming or not? These are all fairly straight forward questions, especially for a feature that was matter-of-factly announced for a month ago. And yet, in spite of it being asked on several forum posts, and in nearly every Ask the Devs, no one at PGI has addressed it, or mentioned it, even once since that post stating it would be ready by the 2^nd.

It isn’t about what is talked about; it’s about what is being avoided. Please PGI, release information about DX 11, your updated roadmap through the end of the year (at least the features already listed in the now outdated upcoming features/content threads), and demonstrate to us that your vision has not faltered, in spite of recent road blocks.  

Update: I often say that I am pessimistic so that way I am either correct, or presently surprised. Less than 24 hours after I posted this, PGI announced the following:

After integrating CryEngine 3.4 we noted a number of issues with the DX11 implementation that we didn’t feel were acceptable to push out to production. We have worked with our partners to address the key issues, these have now been resolved and we are enabling DX11 internally for testing. Once it passes QA it will be enabled on production, we appreciate the fans patience while we work to ensure the DX11 renderer is just as stable as the DX9 renderer.

Reference: http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/68360-into-the-lab/page__view__findpost__p__1389491

This perfectly answers this question, Thanks! Now please continue to be communicative and work with the players who are trying just as hard as you to make your game great! :)

Heat Level Critical: Shutdown Imminent

Just a quickie – this was built as an extension of Signs and Portents 

The current notion of the community is that heat is generated too quickly, or dissipated to slowly. I explored this idea in Heat Levels Critical http://dbefored.blogspot.com/2012/10/heat-levels-critical.html. Simply stated, the heat dissipation system works on a ten second cycle, whereas most weapon systems work on a 2-4 second cycle (however, they generate in those cycles the same amount of heat that they should over a ten second cycle).

Double heatsinks (DHS) were expected by the community to help alleviate the problem by providing heatsinks that took up two additional critical slots, but that dissipated twice the heat (hence “double heatsink”). However, when DHS were released to us, it seems that they did not improve the engine heatsinks, which was not intended. Let’s assume that the pilot managed to fit ten DHS into their mech (which is quite a few given the critical requirement, especially if you also demand three critical slots). That should provide him with effective heatsinks of forty; enough to run most of the current high heat builds. However, due to this bug; the pilot only had thirty effective heatsinks. Thankfully they are fixing this problem in the next patch. Or are they?

With the change to DHS to a 1.4 coefficient instead of a 2.0, the efficiency of each DHS changes dramatically. While the engine will gain additional efficiency, it will only be the equivalent of four additional heatsinks, not the ten as was expected. At the same time the ten heatsinks you have fit on the mech above also reduce in efficiency, dropping down fourteen, an equivalent, a loss of six. The addition of four heatsinks from the engine does not compensate for the six lost from the DHSs on the mech itself. It would appear that any mech that has more than seven DHSs will LOSE efficiency after this “fix” is put in. This is pretty sad, considering many players analysis has shown DHS to be a bad option in a vast amount of situations (including some of the most heat intensive builds).


EDIT: In case it isn't 100% clear, I think these changes are stupid. Flat out miss informed. If the balance of heat was SO far off in TT to require 3x heat gathering, and 1.4 heat dissipation, how was the TT considered "balanced"? However, I want to wait and see before making a deeper dive into this topic. I do want to go on the record saying: stupid.

Signs and Portents

Disclaimer: I am not a member of PGI staff, nor have I had any meaningful conversations with PGI about their theory and game design, I am reading the writing on the wall, based on my observations and knowledge of game development. Chances are, some is right, some is wrong, and some will come as great amusement to the PGI staff. In this post I am including information that has been stated by PGI, that information is as accurate as their word is ;-), everything else is my personal commentary.

PGI as a company has been very communicative to its players, almost to a fault. They have since early in closed beta shown the players timelines, plans, and ideas well in advance of their implementation in the game. This comes as a double edged sword. On the one hand, the player base gets excited and passionate about the game, allowing them to maintain interest where a fair bit of the features are still barely on the drawing board. On the other hand, development can be unpredictable, and things change. Timelines alter, things are cut as practice shines a harsh light on theory, and external pressures drive priority shifts in the company. It is very easy for the player base to feel cheated, or outright lied to, when their pet feature gets pushed back or lost into the void. Unfortunately, that has happened quite a bit recently.

This is compounded by the fact that PGI describes features, content, and balance changes that are supposedly going to be released, but is fairly tight-lipped about the theory behind those changes. This then puts it on the players, and analyzers such as yours truly, to attempt to read the tea leaves and dig beneath what is being said, to try to understand the decisions behind them. Spoiler alert: I both like and dislike what I see.

Tomorrow is a very important day for MW:O, it marks the first content patch since the beginning of open beta, there has been a couple of posts that discuss the nature of this patch, and some future plans and this is a really great place to begin our investigation.

From Into the Lab:

• New DHS values (1.4) applied to all heatsinks, including engines.

This change was foretold in this http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/66075-heat-and-double-heat-sinks-dhs/ post and this simple change tells us a lot about what PGI feels about heat. To put it bluntly PGI disagrees with the community that heat is imbalanced, or at least in the same way the community does.

I was going to go into this here, however it became far too long, so I broke it out into its own post. I am already fearful as to how long this post will be as it is.

•  A fix for the glowing mechs and HDR blacking out screens.

The glowing problem is pretty new, only after the latest CryEngine upgrade came in did bloom become overdone, but even before they “fixed” that it didn’t darken your screen. It is obvious that they still are tinkering with their understanding of the new CryEngine, and that they are basically wasting development time trying to get it back to a state it was before the change.

• A rollback of some netcode changes, hitbox detection improved, but still needs work on faster mechs.

Another example of two steps forward two steps back. A close examination of their recruitment site http://piranhagames.com/Careers_General.html shows that they are actively hiring net code developers. I guess all I can say is let’s hope they find them soon.

This also makes me wonder what point they are rolling back to. Before the latest patch one had to lead quite a distance to have the hit be registered against a fast mover. I considered the current implantation better than that; however I agree it wasn’t awesome to watch Jenners using their teleport function as they rocketed past you. I will say that we will see on this one; however I do not expect anything promising until a while after that job posting goes down.

• Centurion CN9-D.
•  Artemis

I bundle these two together because they really are all about the same problem, the YLW. One of the effects of the YLW was the removal of the Centurion variant it was built off of. This reduced the number of free Cent variants down to two, which is not enough to unlock higher pilot skills in the current backwards advancement system. They stated that the CN9 would not be ready prior to the Artemis’ release, and that the Artimis was part of the ECM/ECCM package. The fact that this is now being released ahead of the ECM package is an indication to me that the YLW, and the outcry related to it, is the direct cause of this being released now. It is important to note however, later in the post indicates that ECM is working, however unbalanced, and so it has been delayed.

On a side note, from saran.net about the CN9-D:

“The D variant of the Centurion is the first of many upgrades using Star Leaguetechnology. The chassis was re-engineered to use Endo Steel construction techniques. Next the power plant was changed from the standard engine to an extralight engine. In the process the maximum speed was increased to 97.2 km/h. Finally, the weapons were upgraded. The Autocannon/10 was upgraded to an LB-X Autocannon/10 and an Artemis IV fire control system was added to the LRM launcher. The two Medium Lasers were retained.”

The Artemis itself appears to help missiles lock and hit as long as line of sight is maintained (not indirect fire). I have no idea how it will be changed, if any, for MW:O.

•  Cockpit Damage FX

I am guessing this means that we will get cracks and such on our cockpit when we are damaged there. This is likely something they have been working on for a bit under “neat immersion features” that finally is ready to go. On a side note: has anyone seen the “cockpit lights dim when you take heavy hits” feature? I haven’t really noticed that.

•  Missile Door Toggle/State Lights (Open, Closed, Destroyed)

This is a feature that has been asked for quite a bit by missile pilots, and I think will end up being more of a pain for them then they realize. What this seems to do is allow the pilot to keep their pods open, and thus reduce lag time for shooting weapons. However, when the pods are open, they take extra damage, so I expect to see streak kitties get their ears knocked off in record numbers after the patch.

•  Trial Mechs act like purchased mechs and stay locked until match ends. Reduces suicide farming, AFK players.

They tried so hard to fix this problem without making this change, but it was inevitable. However, this post  seems to imply that there is a major fix coming for the new player experience. I find it interesting that this is not expanded upon yet. The post was made five days ago, but the changes are still not detailed. IMO the new player experience may be the single most important thing for MW:Os development right now.

• Phase 1 Matchmaking. Max pre-made group size is now set to 4.

PGI I am not angry, just disappointed.

There are some other details teased at the bottom of the post. Of them, the camo sounds to be the likely to come out the soonest. According to the post, Bitchin Betty is already in, but has to be turned on by a cfg file I failed to find :/. However, I think it is hilarious that there is a feature in the game that is censored by the forum word filterJ.

Two modules are teased, but no details given so they make grilled cheese sandwiches, and French fried respectively until PGI says otherwise.

The only real thing I have to say about Conquest is that I predict it won’t be released until at least matchmaker phase 2, it just wouldn't make sense otherwise.

Over all, this patch appears to be a “placate the masses” patch. It appears as if they had learned their lessons from the patch prior to open beta, and did a better job separating out their features so they can release what is ready, and not hold off dueto features that are not fit for prime time. However, due to the high demand of a week patch cycle, and the pressure to keep up with it, has caused this patch to be largely a squeaky wheel fixer. I am fearful that valuable development time is being taken away from actual development, and reassigned to problem fixing, which is a dangerous thing to do in a beta (until of course you are near feature complete). What is also troubling me are the things not being discussed, however I will have to break that out into a post of its own.

UPDATE: Some updates have come from the latest Ask The Devs post. Amid the ice cream questions, some of it is even relevant.

• Paint schemes and other vanity stuff is likely to come out 20th or 27th (This is apparently VERY important, he answered at least three questions about this!)
• NARC is bad (officially now!) and is being worked on. No ETA.
• The missile pod change will be as I described above.
• ECM will likely do more then just jam or counter NARC/TAG 
• Garth is a light mech pilot (no wonder they thought tripping was broken ;-))
• Forest colony update TOMORROW (How was this missed in the original post?)
• Weapon grouping is coming to Mech Lab
• Trial Mechs should change every two patches (so we are due for a change tomorrow)

Open Beta Survival Guide: Starting Fresh

This post is meant to be a follow up post to Open Beta Survival Guide: Preparation which was originally written three weeks before Open Beta started (although at the time I thought it was just a handful of days). Now finally Open Beta is upon us and this guide will serve as your guide introducing you into the world of MW:O.

Step 1: Prepare for the Beta

Like most things first you must register, download and prep your computer for the game before you play it. However, while you are doing this I recommend taking the time to prepare yourself for the game. If you have never played a MechWarrior game before (MechAssault doesn't count), this game may seem foreign  confusing, and a bit unresponsive. These are part of the game experience. Mechs are lumbering machines and do not turn on a dime like you may have seen in some other games. Getting a feel for how your mech handles is a key part of the game.

To prepare yourself, you should watch the tutorial video and read the starting guide on the MW:O website. However this does not give you all of the information you will need to be a master MW:O pilot. In particular you will want to know how to set up your weapons groups, target enemies, and manage your heat. You will likely spend a fair amount of time in trial mechs that are notoriously heat inefficient. 

Furthermore, I recommend setting up TeamSpeak 3 at this time. While you may not always choose to be in groups, likely there will come a time where you will want to, and you will want it ready when that occurs.

Step 2: Learn to Love the Trial Mechs

Like it or not, without spending money you will be resigned to trial mechs for the first several hours of gameplay. Trial mechs are exactly the same as the mech variant it is based off of, and these varients come directly out of the table top game BattleTech, which MechWarrior is largely based off of (you will likely see people discuss the table top rules, referring to it as 'TT'). 

The following are the differences between "trial mechs" and "bought mechs"

• Trial mechs receive a reduced CBill reward
• Trial mechs receive no experience
• Trial mechs have no customization (load-out, skin, in cockpit items)
• Trial mechs have no rearm or repair bills
• Some bought mechs have CBill/Experience boosts (hero mech, founders mechs)

Because of all this the trial mechs are an excellent time to learn the game, and take point for your team (you do not have to pay repairs, where others might).

It is worth noting that you may skip the trial mech phase by purchasing MC with real money. Doing so allows you to purchase a mech outright, however any customization you wish will need to be purchased with CBills. Some players are opting to purchase the hero mech Yen-Lo-Wang so that they can use his 30% CBill boost to quickly obtain enough for their fleet of mechs. The choice is up to you.

One thing to keep in mind is that you are not playing a cheapened version of the game at this time. You are playing with real mechs, in real matches. Trial mechs can provide a lot of good to even experienced players. I would recommend starting to play with others as soon as possible, as teamwork is huge in MW:O. Pugging (playing in random public groups as opposed to pre-built ones) can be quite frustrating if you don't understand what you are doing and how to properly fall into a team. If nothing else, spend some time with on the MW:O public TeamSpeak servers to learn the ropes. I have found that almost all of the people you will meet there are helpful, and willing to train new players.

The two most popular TS servers are:

• Comstar Relay North America (Comstar NA) Available Slots: 512 Man TS3 server Address: na1.mech-connect.net Password: WordofBlake
• Comstar Relay Europe (Comstar EU) Available Slots: 512 Man TS3 server Address: eu1.mech-connect.net Password: hG5!4Dg*

Admittedly most people current stay on the EU server. During closed beta that was THE unofficial TS server, so many people still stay there, in spite of their timezone.

Step 3: Choose Your Niche

MW:O has a strong focus on class warfare. Light mechs are not weaker then assault mechs, however they often fill different roles. The moral of the story is that if you pilot a light mech like an assault, you will be chewed up, and vise versa. One of the good things about trial mechs is they provide you with one of each mech size category (light, medium, heavy, and assault). Diversify during your trial time to discover which works best for what you need. Mechs can be expensive with MC, and so knowing what mech you want in order to prevent buyers remorse is very important. Do some research, and ask other players for help in order to ensure you are happy with your choice. DO NOT JUST BUY A COMMANDO BECAUSE IT IS CHEAPEST, and do not save up for the Atlas because more expensive = more power. Try to find the mech that will suit you. 

Step 4: Buy Your Mech, Find Your Home

Unless you're a founder, or are willing to purchase a lot of MC, you will likely be spending quite a bit of time in your first purchased mech. Now that you have a mech of your very own you have to pay attention to things like rearming, and repairing. Missiles and rounds must be reloaded after all, and some mechs will have a lower cost per drop then others (generally laser focused mechs will be cheaper). However, I would say that you don't need to make too much of a choice based on that. After all if you are in a mech that you find fun, then the money will come in time (you are having fun after all). It is better to do what you enjoy, then try to grind the "most efficient" path towards riches (especially if those riches are simply to be able to get the mech you enjoy).

Early on you shouldn't worry about the advanced upgrades like Ferro-Fibrus armor, double heat-sinks, and Endo-Steel internals. Most of the time these are designed as minor upgrades that cost more then they provide in the long run. As you run your first few missions attempt to upgrade your layout without relying on upgrades, and update your mechs experience often. The choice of where to put the xp is yours, eventually you will need to get all of the basic xp efficiencies.

Step 5: Set Your Path

About the time you upgrade your mechs basic efficiency you will stand at a crossroads that will define where you are heading as a MechWarrior. If you choose to be more versatile, you should buy a different mech that fills a different role, and begin the same process with this new mech. If you instead choose to specialize, begin to upgrade parts of the mech to get the most out of your chosen role. At some point you will want to buy two other variants of the same mech type, and build up enough experience in them to complete all of your basic upgrades. This will unlock the very nice advanced upgrades for your chosen mech. Slowly but surely build up your weapon of war until it is tuned exactly how you like it.

Word of warning: Not all upgrades are good in all situations. For example, double heat-sinks cost over a million CBills to switch over, and can even be a downgrade for heavier mechs, where critical slots are vital. Also, Ferro-Fibrus armor is in every way worse then Endo-Steel, and should be avoided except under extremism circumstances. In this game, research trumps money; strategy trumps bruit force.

MW:O is a game with a lot of potential, but for that potential to be realized it will take a lot of work both from PGI, and its players. Teamwork, cooperation, planning, and strategy will win the day. This is still beta, and things are prone to change. I look forward to seeing you on the battle field. Stay informed MechWarrior!

Patchmas!

Well here we are, patchmas has finally arrived! 

We have waited long enough for this patch, lets just jump straight into what it does, and what there is to say about it.

NEW BATTLEMECHS:

• Jenner JR7-K
• Raven RVN-3L
• Cicada CDA-2A
• Cicada CDA-2B
• Cicada CDA-3C
• Cicada CDA-3M
• Awesome AWS-9M

New stompy mechs yay! The Cicada is new medium mech. At 40 tons it sits between the Raven and Centurion in size. In general the Cicada's main focus is speed. The slowest Cicada stock mech goes 113 KPH and the rest clocs in at a blazing 129.6 KPH.

The 2A is an energy weapon specialist with six energy hard-points  however the stock version sadly only uses two of these. Given the current heat system I wonder how many Cicada's will be able to use all six without causing themselves to transform into slag.

The 2B seems to trade one one of their energy hard-points to move several of them to the arms. Honestly, this seems to be a superior build. Given your speed, the additional flexibility of having arm mounted hard-points seems important. Furthermore the chances are most builds wont use all six hard-points. I could be wrong, and if I am please correct me in the comments below.

The 3C is the dedicated ballistic platform. Four ballistic hard-points are supported by one energy hard-point. It is the slowest stock Cicada, but that should be able to fixed by dropping an XL engine in it. I suspect that this will be the "scout" Cicada. Load up a tag and four AC/2s on chain-fire and rock mechs long enough for the rain to fall. That sounds really fun actually...

The 3M will be a pretty decent brawler. Four energy points are supported by one ballistic point. Slap on four lasers and an AC to rock the target as you strafe around at over 120KPH. Could be scary, could also be a pretty nice counter to LRMS and Gauss-cats.

All of Cicadas can be fit with AMS, but none can have jump-jets. It is clear that the main role of the Cicada is to move quickly and get behind the main force and strike and the squishy LRMS and GAUSS.

New hero Mech: Yen-Lo Wang

The first hero mech came out and it is based off of the old CN9-AH, however it replaces the arm ballistic with energy hard-points, which many people see as the entire point of the AH mech in the first place. The mech itself costs 3,750 MC and can not but purchased with CBills. Yen-Lo Wang sports a custom skin (which is not at all as described in the stories), and has a built in permanent 30% CBill bonus. the CN9-AH has been retired and replaced by this mech. This part is a bit confusing. Paul stated that the AH was in the game to test for the Yen-Lo Wang mech without tipping their hand what the hero mech would be. I see this as a pretty big mistake. They already have the other mech built and worked out, and yet they are taking it away and forcing you to pay MC to replace it. I would not be surprised if public outrage caused them to reverse this decision, and honestly I think the game would be better for it. I say, let them have the AH and fall in love with it, that may drive them to get the YLW for the CBill bonus and skin. Make the player fall in love, then offer them a way to invest in their ownership. This is why skins and cosmetic items work so well in F2P games in the first place! Taking something that people had, and then blocking behind a premium fee feels a bit slimy, but I digress.

Honestly, the mech itself is not what I find interesting, but rather what this means for the game. First of all, this sets a precedent for future hero mechs. Up until now there was nothing that altered your in match experience that required MC, this changes that. Now if you want to fight with this variant load-out, you must purchase this mech for MC. No other way around it. Secondly, this shows that hero mechs will likely have the kind of bonus that we see with the CBill boost, we now have two examples of mechs with bonus CBills, so this is likely going to become a norm for hero mechs. Thirdly, this CBill reward is HIGHER then the Founders mechs, which demonstrates a power creep into the system. The F2P premium model encourages PGI to continue to make the next thing better then previous things, to keep people buying, and this demonstrates they have taken the bate. I would not be surprised if we continue to see this convenience "power creep" continue as time goes on. I may write about this more in the future. Moving on!

Ferro Fibrous, Endo-Steel, and Double Heat Sinks

I lump all of these things into one category: make things more efficient at the cost of more critical slots. They have made it so that the excess critical slots can spill over intelligently throughout the mech. A couple of notes is that it seems that in general Endo-Steel is far more efficient then Ferro Fibrous, Double Heat sinks probably are not working as intended (they do not seem to be working as double for many people), and Double Heat-sinks charge EVERY TIME you swap between them and normal heat-sinks (although I think that may be true for all three, the DHS is far more expensive, and so a bigger deal).

New skins and cockpit items

MONKEY BOBBLE-HEAD IS AWESOME!

Also, the skin does not work on founders mechs or the cicada mechs at this time.

One last thing that caught my eye:

We've also made changes to the economy of the game. Firstly, we standardized MC to C-Bill pricing. Secondly, we've lowered engine prices and item prices have been increased. This all adds up to, Mech costs being the sum of it's parts. While it doesn't follow the canon pricing, it is close.

Given my last couple of posts, I wonder if some folks at PGI read my blog. That would be kind-of awesome! They even used a chart! Although admittedly theirs is a bit more polished :)

Over all, you can tell why they felt so strongly they were ready for open beta, after this patch I am inclined to agree. If they spend this week fixing the few bugs that still are kicking around (and the new ones that cropped up), and are conservative with their patch next week, I would say its time for a nice open beta release.

Oh one last thing, they released their tutorial video, and while it is good it is just a video. Give us an area where we can drop and move around in our mechs without fighting enemies. Better yet allow a group to drop in to explore the maps, skirmish, and train. Videos don't cut it. Sorry.

Edit: someone on the forums pointed out that the mech that was removed was the CN9-AH not AL, sorry and it has been corrected.

League Of MechWarriors: Part 2

First of all, let me start off by saying I am sorry for the delay of writing this. Between work becoming busy unexpectedly, and my lack of good data about comparisons between the real life conversion rates of the two games, I decided to push this off until I could do it right. In the end the data not only supports my theory, but more so than I even predicted.

In part one I compared MW:O’s virtual currency economy with that of League of Legends’ (henceforth known as LoL). My evaluation was that based on average results in both games, the reward you receive per hour is roughly equal, if your goal is to get new unlocks as fast as they come out (although admittedly the climb through the backlog is currently much greater for LoL!)

Today I will look at the currency exchange between real life money and the game money, to calculate exactly how much your time is worth in each game. First of all I made a thing:

The MC cost for each mech type is the same across its variants (which should be a warning flag that things are going to be a bit wonky). To compensate for that, I took the average of each type for math purposes. The CBills per MC row calculates how much your MC is worth in the various types. For example, if you buy an Atlas with MC you are actually getting a higher CBill/Dollar value then if you were buying a Jenner. This almost makes sense; however the Raven and Centurion are the two most inefficient purchases, in spite of the fact that they are not the cheapest mechs. In a lot of ways the ratio seems arbitrary, almost sloppy. It would be nice if the ratios lined up, or at least valued bigger purchases (although, the Atlas is the most efficient).

Dollars per mech is the cost it would take if you bought this in MC. For the purposes of all MC calculations I decided to go for the $30 bundle, because I am guessing it will be the most popular (it is the earliest one that you can get an Atlas with). Because as of right now you must own three mechs to get elite with any of the types, I also included the cost to unlock the ability to get elite with just MC (three times the Dollars per Mech Column).

Finally I calculated the average dollars per hour. For this estimation I decided a player received, on average, 100k CBills per match, and managed to get five matches in an hour for a total of 500k CBills per hour YMMV. As you can, the time you spend working towards the least efficient mech is worth about $0.69 and the most efficient is worth just under a dollar an hour.
You may think that this is very small, but actually this is very good returns for your in-game time compared to other video games. Compare League of Legends below.

This calculation was much easier. In LoL, you earn about 2.3 IP a minute for a win (it caps after just over an hour), with a small bonus at the end. For this chart I assumed a match took 30 minutes (for easy math, sorry). Based on this calculation you are earning about $0.21/hour while winning, and $0.14/hour while losing. This is not only less then MW:O, but it is FOUR TIMES less. Which means your time in MW:O is worth four times as much as your time in LoL.

What is the implication of this? An optimist could say that MW:O is good because it rewards your play, however a pessimist would say that the dollar is devalued in MW:O. It certainly seems to me that it is a game that wants you to earn things through in game (read: free) means rather than paid means. I don’t have to explain how this might seem bad from a business perspective. It is entirely possible that right now the high price of mechs is actually driving their sales down, making it far more efficient to just get the CBills for the purchases. The standard F2P model right now is to give the combat items for cheap, but to charge out the guns for the cosmetic items. At this rate we may be looking at $60 monocles skins again, and that won’t end up good for anyone.

League of MechWarriors: Part 1

Today I want to go into the way-back machine and take you to a simpler time; to a time before Open Betas, bobbleheads, and Christmas canceling. Let’s go all the way back to a month ago. Back then the primary concern was the economy, and much like the American Presidential debates, the arguments surrounding the economy were heated, passionate, and often down right nasty. Well, a few weeks have gone by and things have settled down to what looks to be the implementation PGI will ultimately go for, which gives me a good opportunity to look at it and weigh in on what I find.

When I think of economy in online games I think of auction houses, trade goods, and the sprawling sophisticated economy of EVE. What I do not think of is a linear progression that amounts to an accumulation of goods and finances, unlocking more and more things I can do. The first thing that stands out about MW:O’s economy is that it is next to impossible to LOSE anything. Sure on a particularly nasty match in which you expend most of your reserve of LRMs and get cored in your shiny XL Engine Atlas, it is possible to have to spend more than you make to recover, but that loss is more of a setback then an actual loss. You don’t lose the mech, or the engine, in fact you get most of the armor and armament back, so if worse comes to worse, you could just drop again in the 65% repaired mech and hope for the best. Even barring that, you can always fall back to the trial mechs that are pretty good money makers all things considered.

So this is not an economy of gains and losses, advancements and setbacks. Likewise, due to the nature of the role warfare; it is fairly rare that the mech you are working towards is actually functionally better than the one you are using to earn the CBills to buy it. In all reality, you are not working towards STRONGER mechs, you are working towards DIFFERENT mechs. This, incidentally, is why PGI can claim there is no pay-to-win, because even the lowly trial mechs are built with the same rules as the rest. You are working towards versatility, not power.

Basically, you grind ever onwards, and as you play the game you unlock more things you can play the same games with, with a newish style. There is a tremendously successful game that uses this same model, and serves as an excellent comparison for our “economy”. That game is League of Legends.

For those who do not know, League of Legends  or “LoL” as they call it, is a stand-alone version of the Warcraft 3 mod, Defense of the Ancients. LoL is one of the most popular computer games in the world, sporting nearly twice as many game hours last year as World of Warcraft, and it all but coined “MOBA” to describe the game style that MW:O falls under. It also was one of the biggest forerunners of the Free-To-Play model. In LoL (and its derivatives such as SMITE) the player earns points for playing the game. You gain more points for winning, but everyone walks away with something. You may use those points to purchase new champions with new abilities. You can also use real life money to buy special points that can be used to instantly get a new champion, or buy skins that are only available through the premium points. Every two weeks or so, they release a new champion which is usually “balanced” with (although arguably slightly more powerful then) all of the previous champions. Right now I believe LOL has around 100 champions. Players have access to free champions that rotate every week, and may use them until they can purchase champions of their own. Any of this sounding familiar?

So let’s compare the two progression systems to see if MW:O is “balanced” by current industry standards. In LoL a brand new fresh out the box champion typically costs 6300 points. A player receives 75 to 120 points per win, with 150 point bonus for the first win of the day (a mechanic I almost guarantee we will see introduced somehow into MW:O). This means, in order to stay “caught up” a player would have to earn that within a two week time. 150 * 14 = 2100 (points for First Win Of The Day), 6300 – 2100 = 4200 (points needed to be earned, approx. 42 wins), and 42 / 14 = 3. So, a person would have to play, on average, three to five games a night (assuming they are not all wins) in order to earn the champion through gameplay before that champion is no longer “new”.

Likewise let’s assume that PGI stick to their schedule of a new mech every month (optimism). Mechs cost between three million and eleven million CBills. For ease of math, let’s assume the average mech will be seven million CBills. Let’s assume a winning player without premium time makes 100k CBills per match. 7m / 100k = 70 matches, 70 / 30 =  2.33 repeating matches per day. Assuming a few losses, and maybe a few good wins, you could earn a new shiny mech in just about 3 matches a day for the month.

“Oh Pyro!” you may say, “you need to buy at least three variants to unlock the full potential of a mech! That’s three times as much work.” This is one of those assumptions that can be considered a fallacy. The average match length in LoL is about 40 minutes. The average match in MW:O is 10 minutes (or 6 if you operate by “PGI Math™”. So, you can get three times as many matches in MW:O then LoL and still have ten minutes for AFKs, mech reconfigurations, etc.

In the end, your effort in game is roughly equal between the MW:O economy, and LoL, with a slant towards MW:O once planets give us CBills and discounts. This difference can easily be explained away by requiring you to buy different armaments, and the hefty price of XL engines, which are often the value of a whole new mech.

A couple of side notes. First, a new mech is not exactly equivalent of a new champion.  While champions can be built different ways, most champions will not deviate far from their original play style. By contrast, one mech chassis may have several different builds, all which perform and play totally differently. Secondly, in LoL all champions earn points at the same rate, the same is not true for MW:O. An Atlas will likely have much higher bills then a Jenner, and thus make less CBills over time. This will drive players to feel that they may have to run in mechs they don’t enjoy to get through the “grind” faster. However, I am pretty sure I have made clear that in my humble opinion that is a problem with perception, and not necessarily the mechanics.

Tomorrow, I plan on addressing the other half of the economy, MC. (Spoiler alert, it is not quite as balanced as CBIlls are).

Signs of Strength, Signs of Weakness

First off, I was told by a buddy of mine, that to have a successful Blog on internet, you must have a cat gif, so here you go:

This week has been an odd one for the community. I have already discussed in an earlier post about the forums success in pushing back the date for Open Beta. I knew instantly that there would be consequences for this victory within both PGI and the MW:O community. Many people likened this to the Monoclegate from EVE online. I have said it before and will say it again; these issues that were part of the Summer of Rage are not even in the same city as the “Open Beta Crisis”. That being said, one thing is fairly similar; flushed with success, the community launched salvo after salvo of demands, complains, and threats to leave the game if they were not placated. There is something about convincing the publishers to change their mind that makes everyone into a bratty arm-chair developer. It’s probably the major reason publishers avoid relenting in the first place.

Imagine a coworker the just freaks out about everything. Every security concern, every staple wasted everything. At a certain point you will just get fed up with them, and eventually even issues that are probably a serious concern may be overlooked because it is “that guy” complaining about them. The noise completely outweighs the signal. By acting like everything is a huge deal, in the end nothing becomes a huge deal. You undermine your own authority with a group that has clearly demonstrated that they are willing to listen.

Today, the other shoe seems to have fallen, the message from on high is “If we can’t have the Open Beta we want, you can’t have the Christmas you want” (Never mind that the Christmas reference was two weeks ago saying that then was like a week before Christmas, which makes last week’s engine upgrade Christmas, the sheer number of toys we were supposed to get tomorrow made this more like the real Christmas). On one hand it seems almost as if PGI is exerting some sort of authority, taking things one step farther, and showing themselves as a strong company, willing to do what it takes to make a high quality product.

However, I fear that this ends up exposing their weakness. Many of these updates were originally scheduled for two weeks ago, which means, assuming they actually come out next week, that they will be a month behind schedule.  This is not a message you want to send to investors and onlookers as you continue to form your argument that your game and development staff are ready for prime time. Likewise, last week it was said that several features were in the game, just waiting to be turned on (including my monkey bobble-head). Hopefully, they will still go through the effort to turn at least those on, to give us the illusion of progress.

Now I often white knight PGI, and even in this I am not hateful, only skeptical. Now is a very important time for your team, you have opted to paint a bulls-eye on your back, and continue to act like no one will notice you. You have lifted the veil of the NDA, and continue to act like no one will talk about their disappointments. You may still be in closed beta, but the world is watching. I would use this as a wakeup call to bring your A game. My hope is that you do, you have already impressed me as a development company; don’t let this transition fall flat.

Heat Levels Critical

One thing I want to do in this blog is dig into the systems of MW:O. In particular, systems that seems to have a lot of misunderstanding/arguments within the community. Today, we will discuss heat.

Before I begin, I would like to point out that a lot of the in game weapon stats and the handy chart pictured below are care of Ohmwrecker, I will put his information at the bottom of the post. You should go check out his YouTube channel; he knows something about this gameJ.

So to begin the conversation with heat, you have to begin with the table top implementation of it. I will attempt to keep it fairly simple so that we may move on to the important parts.

Heating the table

Heat Chart from the Battletech rulebook

In table top Battletech, heat calculations are done in one phase at the end of a turn. All forms of heat generation (weapons fire, movement, etc.) and heat dissipation (heat sinks, water submersion, etc.) are calculated simultaneously. Heat generation adds to the total, and dissipation is subtracted from. The final result is applied to the previous heat, and then impact is calculated. As your heat climbs, you slow down, it is harder to hit, emergency shut downs were performed and ammo can explode. This is all based on a maximum of thirty heat “points”. It is important to note that in Battletech, one turn is ten seconds.

The “Problem” with MW:O

MechWarrior Online Weapons Cart Via Ohmwrecker

In MW:O heat sinks are designed to function exactly the same way as their table top brethren. Each heat sink reduces your total heat by one every ten seconds (or .1 every second). So if you have ten heat sinks, you heat is reduced by one a second. Likewise, with few exceptions, all weapons generate the same heat as they did in the table top rules. That is where the system begins to break down, and the arbitrary ten second rounds take its toll.

While the heat sinks are working on a ten second timer the weapon systems are generally working on a one to four second timer. This means that most weapons are firing at least three times more, and thus generating three times more heat, then the table top is designed to equate for. Many people point to this as to the reason why heat mechanics are “broken” in MW:O.

Note: to compensate for the ten second round, the “max heat” of a mech in MW:O is 30 + number of heat sinks.

So what is “Heat” anyways?

Heat is designed to provide a balance to a mech just doing everything it possibly can in a round, and also to be a balance to ammo-less weapon systems such as PPCs, and lasers. Almost all weapons generate heat. Ballistics generally creates less heat, but use up ammo. Energy weapons generate far more heat (almost double in many cases) but have no ammo. And missiles are a mix of heat and ammo. Ammo obviously requires tonnage to bring, and heat requires heat sinks to dissipate.

Note: In MW:O moving does also impact heat, however it is still in balance with the table top rules. They did this by effectively removing heat sinks while moving, whereas water effectively adds heat sinks.

The Million Dollar Question

So the real point to all this is does the current heat system break balance in favor of ballistics, in particular the Gauss Cannon, that generates next to no heat for very high damage. The answer is yes and no. Like many things, reality refuses simplicity. Let’s say a Catapult K2 with twin Gauss annons can fire five times before the enemy figures out that moving is a good idea. That would take twenty seconds and he would deal 150 damage for an average of 7.5 damage per second. Meanwhile another Catapult K2 ops to have twin PPC. The PPC fires once every three seconds, so to be generous let’s give him twenty-one seconds of fire. In that time the twin PPCs will deal 140 damage, and fire seven times with an average of 6.66 damage per second. Also, during this time it generates 140 heat, well beyond anything that any mech could possibly handle. In fact, that K2 would require forty tons of heat sinks in order to sustain this firepower, plus the fourteen tons for the PPCs, you only are left with eleven tons for everything else. Meanwhile, ten shots for the Gauss K2 is thirty-one tons (thirty for the twin Gauss, one extra for the ten rounds). By this logic one could confirm that the Gauss is superior in every single way and rage and wine about balance surrounding heat.

And they would be half right

The problem is that the above theory-crafted scenario is totally impractical. First, the idea of an enemy allowing you to fire non-stop for 20 seconds is impractical. Second, the target would be dead long before this was over. Third, you must take into consideration that after this time is over; the Gauss at is now out of ammo (which can be fixed by adding more tonnage). Fourth, you fail to take into consideration the time off target benefit of heat weapons.

Once contact with the enemy is lost, the efficiency of heatless weapons drops dramatically. After four seconds (the reload time of Gauss), those thirty tons of guns are doing nothing, and getting you nowhere. Meanwhile the PPC K2 is continuing to dissipate heat, making him more prepared for the next engagement. Given enough short breaks in combat by proper use of cover, energy weapons are more effective over the entire course of the game. It is extremely rare to be able to sustain fire over more than ten seconds without at least an opportunity for breaking combat to occur. All the while every shot from the projectiles/missiles that miss means loss of combat potential overall.

While I am not saying it is 100% balanced, I do say that making any drastic changes to the system at the moment would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. This issue will also see changes as we move to twelve v. twelve as ammo conservation becomes a bigger deal. Simply speaking, counters do exist, and reasons exist to utilize both weapons (even more so if PPCs will start ruining enemy targeting). Simply looking at one side of the problem will ruin more game balance then it solved.

Once again, thanks to Ohmwrecker for pervading the stats and chart used to create this blog. He has several such charts which I will list below. Check them out, and check out his YouTube channel. Be advised: it is up to him to update the information displayed.

Ohmwrecker's Hardpoint Chart
Ohmwrecker's Weapon Chart
Ohmwrecker's Engine Cheat-sheet
Ohmwrecker's Engine Values
Ohmwrecker's YouTube

A Tale of Two Lances

So tonight was going to be an easy night, hang out on MW:O, hope for a fix to the Atlas problem (which is hilarious as far as I am concerned), maybe write a post about heat mechanics, drink a glass of wine, and get to catch up on some well needed sleep.

The folks at PGI did not enjoy this plan apparently. In an amazing one two punch they release a patch that all but fixes much of the issues that have come up since the last patch, and a outpouring of information for the community. To top it all off, the distributed it TO THE PLAYERS, as opposed to some random news outlet, website, or create some crazy Valve level ARG to hunt down the information needed to stay current with this game.

PGI's news tried to come through as a "fix all your woes" post, clearly demonstrating their commitment to their players. They used this post, which was initially released only to beta testers, to announce the delay of the open beta. This is huge, delaying a game is never an easy choice, and they had worked so hard on their hype engine these last few weeks. First they lifted the NDA, then before anyone could react they had the PC Gamer issue that sung their praises. Many people were confused that the magazine was giving out trinkets and skins, but no closed beta passes and then BAM OPEN BETA ANNOUNCEMENT on the same day the magazine hits shelves. All of the dominoes were in line to skate them to an amazing launch open beta, nothing could stop them.

But then something did, the fan base rose up and cried out how silly of an idea this is. It wasn't so much the lag (they fixed it quickly enough to have it stable for release). It was the public, unified outcry from the player base (although I wrote a piece saying they were ready, even I wrote that mostly to spur discussion, not because I felt it was 100% true). The player base caused not just the game development team, but also the business guys to concede on several fronts all at once. This is huge! This is news! This should be a news article all in its own! So why wasn't it?

Nestled into the seeming parade of player appeasement announcements they address one of the most controversial topics on the MW:O forums (well, they DID gloss over goss kitties again). The announcement of the new "matchmaking system" which should really be called the new group making system. What could possibly be so controversial that they would have to wrap it in all of this player love?

The developers at PGI are all veteran game players. Many of us were or still are competitive gamers and truly know the feeling of a great match played between two equally matched teams.

The next 3 stages of planned releases for Match Making involve the following:

Phase 1:

Reduce the maximum # of players in a group to 4. This means when players form a group, they will only be able to add 3 people. When that group launches, they will be put in a bucket. The match maker will then fill the rest of the 8 player team with 4 PUGs or any partial groups that are looking for a match at that moment. The same will happen for the other team. Matches will still be 8v8 but instead of playing against 8 people in an organized premade, you will see a max of 4.

Now before you light your pitchforks, we know that this does not address all the issues and that 8-player groups are the mainstay of community and organized team-play. This is why we move to Phase 2 VERY soon after Phase 1.

Phase 2:

Players will be able to convert their 4-player group to an 8-player group similarly to how World of Warcraft’s group to raid conversion works. With a click of a button, a group leader can convert a 4-player group to 8-players and invite 4 more players to the group. There is a limitation to this however. If the group leader decides to convert to an 8-player group, they MUST have 8 players in order to launch. (i.e. you cannot launch a game with 5,6 or 7 players). In addition to that, your 8-player group will be matched to another 8-player group ONLY. This does reduce the change of finding a match quickly but at the same time 8-players teams will finally be matched to other 8-player teams exclusively.

At some future date we will also want to include the ability to challenge a specific 8-player team to a match in a competitive/eSport manner. But as stated, this will be coming at a later date.

Phase 3:

We have been examining the various ranking systems in other games/structured tournament play etc. This includes ELO, TrueSkill and others. Our current plan is to use a hybrid system that uses the mentality of ELO with a weighting system that we’ve determined that drives down to player effectiveness/skill in a match. In order for this to work properly, we will need to do heavy pre-release testing before it goes live to the community and hence the amount of time to get it implemented.

We currently cannot go into detail as to how this system will work because we are not going to over-promise something that may change during implementation. We will try to keep you as up to date on this as possible.

What? Really? You are going to nerf teamwork? There is no reason for this!

Well, yes and no. In the Battletech universe a "Lance" is four mechs. and teams can be comprised of multiple Lances. This, by the way is the rational of jumping from 8v8 to 12v12 etc. Each Lance is a team in themselves, you may have your scout lance, or your LRM lance etc. So in a way having a team of 4 instead of a team of 8 does start to make sense. Really the only problem I see is a delay between phase one and phase two. Personally I think that phase one is "what we have ready for testing" and phase two is "what we were trying to get happening in the first place"

Honestly, I like this idea more the more I think about it, but I think they should go one further. A group, or Lance can comprise of up to four players. Once a lance hits four, the Lance commander is given the option to combine with another Lance of four. This means you end up with two merged groups of four, not one group of eight. If you give each one a leader, and the ability to make their own marks on the maps, communication, etc. you start to have the ability to function more like an actual military unit.

So lets say Pyrodante forms a Lance and gets three other players. Pyro leads his group, so he then invites a second Lance to join. Pyrodante is now the "Drop Commander" and the "Lance Commander", and can send commands to his Lance, the other Lance commander, and everyone. Meanwhile the Lance Commander for Bravo Lance can issue his orders to his Lance. Chain of command is established.

Creating a modular Lance system allows all sizes of battles as well, 12v12 is just three groups of four, and 8v8 is just two Lances. This provides an expandable system with shared communication and clear command structure. Could be cool.

The only glaring problem is this partial implementation. No one likes to be told they can't drop with their buddies, especially when you combine that with the frustration of having your buddies replaced by someone who may end up being a total failure. I think that letting us know where you are going is enough for now. Get it ready and release it all at once to us. Please don't replace a borked system that angers a segment of the player base with a second borked system that angers the other segment of the player base. All that will do is further the animosity between to two groups.

One last note, although this announcement was made at the same time as the emergency patch, this was not included in the patch. In fact, so far there is no direct indication of when ANY of this will be implemented. The assumption is they are going to release it on Tuesday, but with Open Beta delayed, I would like to see them reign it back in and just finish phase two, but hey Keep Calm and Continue Testing right?

Open Beta Survival Guide: Preparation

Welcome prospective MechWarriors! As we are all aware, this upcoming week marks the launch of Open Beta, and hopefully an influx of new blood into the game. This post is designed as a bit of a guide for those who are gearing up to be entering into the game for the first time on Tuesday, however I welcome all players to read, and comment and add your input.

This edition of the guide will be mostly about the preparation for, and the experience of, your first few days of MW:O. I hope to provide further guides as things that need to be discussed pop up. I have split it up into “Before Tuesday” things to do to prepare, and “Your first day”. Each is split into do’s and don’ts and are discussed a bit in detail. So let’s get started.

Before Tuesday:

Do’s

• Read Guides and Stickies: It is unfortunate that many of the best information are still locked behind forums that non-closed beta players cannot access, however there are some that have filtered out, and hopefully I can get permission to post some of the most useful ones here. Otherwise I hope to post links to useful guides. That being said the information is out there, even if you can’t read all the stickied guides now, this can be deferred to be a “Your first day” sort of thing. Either way, reading the information that has been collected by diligent players before you will make a world of difference.

      Edit: Several people have been providing me with guides, tutorials, and video's, I will try to maintain a handy list at the end of this post

•    Ignore the hate on the forums: There is a lot of controversy on the forums at the moment, and sadly some of that is spilling into the public forums. While a lot of the concerns are valid, much of it is being addressed, and honestly reading about how miserable you will be won’t help anything. Bottom line is, if you’re excited for the game, great! Allowing others negativity to ruin your experience before you even get started is no good for anyone.

•    Read up on the lore: The MechWarrior fan base knows their stuff when it comes to the story, and a lot of discussions will deal with the authentic cannon in which MechWarrior takes place in. There are good places to read up about the history, and mechs on MechWarrior. So, if you have time, it can’t hurt to brush up. (A good example would be http://battletech.wikia.com/wiki/History_of_the_BattleTech_universe, by the way MW:O takes place on a 1:1 time scale starting in 3049)

• Make sure your video drivers are up to date: A lot of people have been having problem with the new engine, and honestly a lot of those problems could be solved with good drivers. Might as well update them now.

Don’t

•  Go out and buy a joystick: Honestly, with such a highly competitive game as MW:O, having a joystick, especially with the current limited support for them, is a hindrance.

• Take time off work: It is a beta, chances are Tuesday will be largely unplayable. Don’t set yourself up for failure.

• Wait to get Founders: I believe today is the last day to pick up the cool mech’s/status for your profile. If that is something you want, now is the time to get it (the founders mechs represent a permanent increase to CBills while using them, but requires the $60 or $120 version of the program).

Your first day:

Do’s

•  Watch the tutorials: The game is fairly complicated, and while there are plenty of good guides on the forums/elsewhere, PGI has said tutorial videos will be available on Tuesday. Hopefully these end up being good. Otherwise, keep reading the guides on the forums.

• Be patient: Launches are rough, especially if the game is being successful. Hopefully all goes well, but if not, don’t be surprised if there is lag, servers brought down for maintenance, and not a lot of news from the staff as they panic to keep the hamsters running. Sad to say, this is pretty much normal in this industry.

•   Find people to hang out with: I am unsure what the state of the unofficial TS server will be in Open Beta, but if it is available USE IT. Talking with others and finding people to play with is probably the single biggest thing you can do to ensure your success.

•   Have fun: if you find yourself looking at the game as work, or a grind. Take some time off. (and post your level headed feedback on the forums)

Don’t

•  Expect MechLab right away: One of the cool things about MechWarrior is the ability to customize your mechs. However, as a new player you will need to play some games with your Trial Mechs. These mechs are not customizable, and based on Table Top templates. They swapped out which mechs were the Trial Mechs a week ago, so it’s anyone’s guess which will be the mechs for next week. In general expect Trial mechs to run hot, and have weapon systems that cover several different ranges (non-specialized).

•  Be afraid of loss: The one big advantage of Trial Mechs is no cost to rearm/repair. So focus on tactics, and supporting your team. It doesn’t really matter if you deplete your ammo, or if you get cored, so if you want to do your buddies a favor you can be the guy to peek around the corner, soaking up damage that otherwise would have to be paid for in the end.

•  Be a hero: MW:O is a team game. It is not Call of Duty, it is not a single player game. You cannot single handedly take on the enemy. The lance that sticks together… sticks together. You may see scouts run off on their own, that doesn’t mean your Awesome should chase after them. Which brings me to...

• Chase the Squirrel: Light Mechs are fast, agile, and still can do a fair bit of damage. A common tactic is to be spotted by the enemy and then lure a few of the more tunnel vision infected enemies into an ambush, or clean out of bounds. Don’t be that guy.

All in all you should be excited to get into MW:O, and we are excited to have you! I hope to see you on the battle field. As I said before, any additional advice/warnings, please leave in the comments.

Tutorials/Guides

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bykz9kUNBTI - Seems very good for basic controls, and mech piloting. Excellent for those who may never have played a MechWarrior game before. - Thank RedShift2K5

UPDATE: The Open Beta has been delayed. We do not have a new date for the Open Beta, I will keep you updated as I can.

I For One Accept Our New Reddit Overlords.

I make no secret that I am an EVE player, and being such I have a past with Reddit. I like to go to Reddit pretty often for amusing pictures, awesome links, and other random things. However I have a history with Reddit USERS. The members of Test Alliance (The Reddit group in EVE) are second only to Goons in their reputation of tomfoolery. I have seen some good AMA's on Reddit, but I have also seen some BAD AMA's on Reddit. Given the current culture of the forums on MW:O beta I feared the latter. But I am surprised to say that a fair chunk of interesting things have come out of it. I will attempt to summarize here.

First off, for those who don't know, Reddit has a tradition called AMA's (Ask Me Anything) where someone gets on and answers as many questions from the public as they can stand in a period of time. In the past we have seen everything from porn stars, to prop handlers of famous movies, to the freaking President of the United States doing AMA's. So why is Paul doing an AMA, and why now? Doesn't he have other things to do?

In my opinion this AMA was brilliant, and well timed. There is a lot of controversy within the community at the moment, and this has been used as an excellent opportunity to address the doom and gloom directly, albeit vaguely. Secondly, while Goons has a presence in MW:O (as shown by the "Ask a Goon" thread and the many Squaking in game), so far the Reddit gaming community has not latched onto MW:O as much as I would expect. If you go to the MW:O subreddit you only will find a handful of posts, and not much chatter beyond the fact that the NDA has lifted. Right now, more then ever PGI needs to begin building strong groups of interest in their game, if they want a solid launch open beta next week. Starting up a stir in /r/iAMA is an excellent way to get Redditors attention.

So now that we have address why they did this, lets talk about what he has said. I will throw in my own commentary as I can.

Tutorials Next Week -
In my opinion this was the biggest news drop of the day. It shows that they have plans for next week that they haven't mentioned, even beyond the already large list they have planned. Not much has been said about what these tutorials are, however if I gathered it correctly, it will likely be a series of videos, as opposed to an actual interactive experience. Still something better then nothing.

Solution To Premium Time -
While no specifics have been mentioned, the issue was addressed. Paul pointed out that this is not a "game" decision but rather a "business" decision (I could have told you that much). The big wigs that can officially decide what to do about this are currently out, but Paul and his crew are hard at work fighting for us. As an aside I would like to point out that this is one of several examples in the last week that show that, at least Paul and crew, pay attention to the forums, and have a real concern about our happiness as users. I say it again: This. Is. Not. Monoclegate. Please stop using that comparison.

Lag is being addressed -

As a matter of fact just to display his awesome multitasking capability (or to prove how little of the grunt work he really does) a hotfix for the lag issue came out DURING the AMA. From my understanding this hasn't fixed all the problems, but it does show they are committed to fixing the problem. Although in my opinion that should have been obvious from the start. The fact that this hotfix seems to not have fixed all the problems, and possibly caused NEW issues, causes some concern. I truly hope they are not just rushing out fixes in a panic to sate the masses. Just tell us what is going on, and let us wait for a fix. Just don't go into open beta without at LEAST a few stable days under your belt.

Iterative changes to matchmaking coming -

While community warfare may be a bit on the horizon, it looks like at least some changes may be coming sooner, with at least some community support (this is a very good thing). They acknowledge that the current situation is not ideal, but state that separating pre-mades outright would be worse, which I tend to agree. However, they also say that they want the new system to be based on skill, which sounds like a ELO style system which I think would be a mistake. However, I concede that it would be a useful stop-gap until we can actually start sieging planets against each other.

DDR Gangnam style Match to unjam Ultra AC/5 -

This not being true is about the saddest thing from this AMA.

While that is not all of the information that has come out, it is the highlights so far. I will update this post with any interesting things pop up. The moral of the story is this sort of communication is a good thing. Personally I feel they should just expect to give an official announcement after every patch, just to clear up whatever happens to crop up.

He also brushed on Gauss cats and balance, but I think that is an issue for a longer post.

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11bvw1/we_are_the_developers_of_mechwarrior_online_a/

The Veterans Pledge

Today I found something interesting on the forums, with the imminent influx of newer players, the current testers have taken up two camps.

1) We should be as nice and friendly as possible, so that newer players enjoy their experience and become part of our little game community.

2) DO I SMELL AN EASY KILL? I THINK I DO

This reminds me of a discussion that comes up in EVE Online about weekly, which basically amounts to "Does making the game more understandable, make it easier and thus less fun for those looking for a 'hard' experience". In other words, what I like to call the "uphill both ways in the snow" problem.

I like to fight people, preferably in a game, preferably in a game with big machines. The reason I enjoy this over some single player experience is largely because players adapt, the make decisions, and behave unpredictably in a way you simply cannot program a computer to do. After fighting bots for any significant period of time, the experience begins to feel hollow, and the cognitive disconnect becomes harder and harder to ignore.

The problem is that while killing people is fun, killing people who are obviously outgunned or out-skilled only is fun for so long. Sure its entertaining to watch the LRM Catapult launch set after set of LRMS from 50 feet away into your torso as you rip them apart with your weapons, but eventually it becomes dull, and unfulfilling  True enjoyment in a competitive game is facing off against an opponent of near equal skill, and besting him in a round of fierce adrenaline pumping action.

Because of this I think that we as a community SHOULD be dedicated to teaching newer players as much about the game as they are willing to learn. It is not enough to simply have more players, we must have more QUALITY players, for this grand experiment to be successful. Do not horde your knowledge  but give it freely, only then can you know that you have truly bested your enemy (as an aside, there are a lot of "vets" that could use some lessons as well :D)

To to that I pledge:


I Pyrodante pledge to be helpful to noobs during the opening of beta.

I will not berate those who ask questions, because we've heard them a million times before, doesn't mean they automatically know.

I will be helpful in game when asked how to set up firing controls and any other setup or how to play questions.

I will not belittle the new players for running off alone and dying in a fiery twisted hunk of shame.

I will politely tell them tactics on maps.. like for god's sakes stay out of the crater on Caustic it will increase your heat and thus make you fire less and prone to blowing your mech up!

I will politely direct them to the multitude of stickies in the forums (which I will assume to be moved where all can read)



See you on the battlefield

PS: I know the original post called this the "Noob Pledge" but I changed the name because it is the vets giving the pledge, not the noobs :) Reference: http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/58982-the-16th-of-october-noob-pledge/