Mechwarrior Rememberance last edited: 10/31/2017 Lets take a look at the Mechwarrior history then and what it is now are preserved by everyone who grew up in a similar environment of the single player, customization, and experience of single player mode to enforce the hunter feeling with the fandom of the series. Hunting might be a sort of broad statement in seeking-and-destroying for a mission objective either primary or secondary, chasing after something with the thrill of discovering or catching up with an opponent, or even just accomplishing a mission that has places to go to hunt for something or someone or some structure like a power converter or a mad cat piloted by an important figure to have a sense of accomplishment from the hunt. Within the game and not be that popular of a term as people have many ways to distinguish their play styles and builds. With game competitions being all the rage and fighting games, first persons, and even strategy games making it with E-sports people cant help but to organize by roles these days. Some of the terms which started with alot of MMORPGS had different and some same terms in MOBAS and then in the way of MWO there are their own types of roles for pilots. People may refer to it as a sort of role along with the other terms: The Support (range, distract, weaken), The Hunter (chase, strike, escape), The Tank (push, protect, dive), The Scout (sense, communicate, harass), and several others. While all roles have the hunting involved in its experience there are some that specialize in it from the very design to the exact loadout that speaks volumes of what that unit is going to do on the map. The feeling of the Hunt can be all sorts of things and its one of the best things to have inside a game for mech simulations single player, faction play multiplayer, and customization hangars have made Mechwarrior a way to stick out from all those other robot games. These would include games that rely on dashing and shooting with fighting game like play, technical load outs and positioning over the hunt, or focusing button memorization for extreme combos from up close, which really are not anything like the gameplay of Battletechs Mechwarrior line of games. The hunt is really exciting in knowing where the enemy is and chasing after them till the last hit or alpha strike of internals in a circle of death. There is an intense feeling of struggle and satisfaction as the battle breaks out as if you have become apart of lore itself in the universe its in. Whether its the mechs, or the vehicles, or the equipment, or the players, there is something that keeps you wanting even more with the powerful feeling gained from the conflict that makes it layered and deep with people saying its a hard feeling to convey. Players preserve the feelings of this hunt in their hearts for seeking out adventure as they seek out to destroy an opponent and shown by the community in modern days is people waiting for something epic to happen at progression from beginning to an end. It could be people who are using less popular units or less popular groups going up against popular top tier units with top rated groups on the leader board and they take a match as the underdogs or just using load outs that don't make any sense at all being used in a completely different way with a under-appreciated mech. These can bring huge blast of energy into the server as if being in a state of laughter and shock into what had just happened in the match and it is really memorable and gets people building in ways they never thought they would. This does happen in other titles too, but the reason this is preserved and amazing is because it came from the early days of computers and people had to go to other peoples houses to check out how they would play mechs, how they would build mechs with what groupings, and a much more social attachment grew as well with the aspect of the hunt. The access of effective-loadouts and play styles is just so prevalent in the modern day time due to the greatness that is the internet, especially in the realm of video games. Players have gotten older and grew up with the computer, so uploading is sometimes second nature to their desktop usage, YouTube is much more popular with alot of people saying their part on what they think on the title, but thats a bit off topic from the hunt. The key idea is that people sometimes are not exposed to what it was like back in the day and look more at the person-versus-person instead of the feeling of the hunt from the past. As much as people might say its the past it is cemented in PC gaming history and many people know what a Atlas or a Madcat is, so its important to highlight the games ability to survive with its strong community that brings the community together and being crazily hyped for projects that show companies the hopes and dreams of Mech Warrior players. This feeling still exists today as are some additions to the interest of paying attention to its drama because its suggestion prone due to customize attitudes of the gamers involved and while it can be avoided it is an important tool to be used to make alot of decisions even better through critique and not pure criticism or talking down of a product to dwell of never ever or death of a series. I think the hunt has to be preserved and the adventure of mech simulation games that get people back in the seat and understand its worth it to get that feeling of adventure and experience once again the feeling of the hunt with one of the best genres in the game industry. Development Timetable Communication last edited: 10/31/2017 As time goes on people have either accepted what has been brought to the people from companies that have taken their own money and tried to revive a considered long dead franchise of simulation vehicle games. Driving around a tank or driving around a helicopter or even an airplane. We should be thankful in what has happened for Battletech with the Mechwarrior series, but it does definitely hurt in the ways things are going. You can't help but comparing it to the good old days, or from the point of getting older with a back in my day attitude, or the evolution of the older robot games in the differences through the observation of what was happening back then. Builds that worked then don't work now with people using medium laser boats and flamers to make mechs explode. But, since than have had changes due to the developer and reworked in a number of ways, which make the player base need to rethink their time hardened strategies and relearn the game mechanics for their will to win. The Need to Win with Competitive Game Options The feul to win has made the players change, but the games themselves have connected people to certain play styles, factions, and ideals in what makes a really good mech simulator game. Those who use proven builds that are popular for their effectiveness or utilize flaws in the system are called cheaters,hackers, brainless, noobs, etc. Back in the day this was just figuring out the quirks that were inside the game in its final state. Its mostly because the match videos to the enormous extent, easy access to footage of specific mechs and builds with a mass amount of information, and when comparing it to the days in the past the amount of access is seen as completely spoiled by the easy knowledge gain. People can literally just use a search engine and find exactly what they would want to know or simply just message, discuss, and analyze to absorb all the information to create a sort of expectation of what a title should be for mech simulation. Games on steam are easy to purchase and try and those add to the long list of what is needed in a game to grow successful, but is it really fair to judge smaller studios with a still hiring sign to be that of the larger ones? There is a reason why large companies can make large projects with ease and remain dominant in many of its worked on titles and that comes down to the amount of resources they have access too. From the Gamers Viewpoint From the perspective of a gamer we want results, comparable fun, and choices that make a game feel personalized to the play style due to what genre, but the exposure of watching great games and large companies promise huge things is great its not fair to judge smaller companies to churn out the same sort of grade A games that its competition is doing when its in a niche genre of being a mech simulator. How is that different from the other games where you run around and shoot? its that hunt aspect of the game when you slowly approach, plan in a pack, and have a role till the instant action of meeting the prey up face to face in a all out shooting frenzy to the death. Comparing it to other shooting games that are in first person is instant action all the time with no build up, or in the case of third person where everything is moderate in its battle pacing and not as gradual and less weapon options or customization. Its the unique aspects that comes from the genre and the genre itself hasn't caught up with the rest of gaming as it isn't the top type of played game on the market when compared to other Esports A quality video game titles which are truly a spectacle. Changing Expectations by Generation The changes are so drastically different from back in the day in so many ways. Mechwarriors flaws are in the forefront due to the quick speed of information gathering that is instant and it makes it better through discussion and critique from the community. The expectation of what a game studio should do or can do can easily hurl out of control if people don't do their sourcing within the relevance of the discussion being to further develop the title instead of its loyalty fan base. It might be the easy way to just say if people can't afford it don't play it, or if people don't have time for it the game must have gotten stale, or the company isn't doing what I want so im out of it all. It truly is hard to stare a title that is stuck in time warp that has so many things needed to compete and say as a community that it has to be discussed until its well defined. It will then be well defended to the point it gains acknowledgement, well understood what position all the parties involved are at from the gamer, the developer, and the loyal fan base of the universe. The days of the hunt for information in the good old days through friends family and books are ending with the valuable satisfaction of knowing, but no type of game has gone untouched by this same development that is the Internet in its similar stories of easy access and expectation. The DLC Discussion & Development Dates in Real Time Despite the fact that it may seem like a franchise destruction in Mech Warrior Onlines contracts ending years and this falls into the category of business practice to open a title like Mechwarrior 5 announcement in being talked about and marketed makes for a stale taste in previous titles and those who invested in the previous game and is the way games with DLC content. Even more so in the extra-high costs and makes people that more pissed and I sympathize in the last few years of making niche titles really pricey. It makes people think that why they couldn't add the content in the game over time, but the counter argument is that the costs of the mechs are to sustain the company to make only those mechs with many technical grey lines in between that is really hard to talk about how long or how much its cost of development is in the end as changes will always occur and extend dates of when something was suppose to be completed. But that is the nature of development of modern day practice and its been along ever since the days there was a expansion for Mechwarrior II: Ghost Bear Legacy and then Mercenaries, which carried on to Mechwarrior 3 and then Pirates Moon, and Mech Commander to Gold and then Mech Commander 2, and later DLC was more established for the evolution of the gaming market itself. As the game goes forward it slowly creates content that sells which is proven and as more competition enters the market to test out other profitable methods, but with being the main focus of mech simulation draws companies to take a static stance unless an alliance is made. Luckily in the case for the future of mech simulation is great as 3d models and textures are at such a high quality from Piranha Games that it can be reused in other Battletech Universe titles like the Battletech Game by Hairbrained Schemes and hopefully future titles. The investment at this point is for paying to be apart of a community at its biggest, having the ability for early access and customization, and playstyle discoveries as they are happening, but looking on it from an older more economic stand point it literally makes more sense to wait till the game is not as played, goes down in price from it being a previous version and play it then, or to simply invest the least at its old title state and play when time allows. Skill Tree Failure & Succession last edited: 1/4/2018 Before we get into this its important to mention the bases of hardcore fans in their loyalties of the game. This is important to take into consideration, because there are multiple point of views within the topic. While some of these ideas might be relevant to a variety of hardcore types it might not be so relevant to casuals and some MechWarrior series veterans. The fact is that people come from all sorts of introductions of the Battletech universe depending on where they decide to get their referances from. This could be the tabletop, roleplaying game, and previous titles as a sort of heritage reference of the original creators that the series has grown from. So, with that being said lets start talking about the Skill Tree that was added. It has been some time since the Skill Tree got implemented into MechWarrior Online with some lengthy debate that turned sour for the most part. This was to work in the idea of releases based on being caged by lore in the release of certain era mechs and a time where most people would have earned themselves a hand full of mechs over a really long period of time. So it would be a good time to discuss what was the things which made the Skill Tree fail and what things it had succeeded in. So what exactly is the Skill Tree system? and what are Nodes. A Skill Tree has categories of Firepower, Survival, Mobility, Jump jets, Sensors, Operations, and Auxiliary. These categories have nodes that are used as enhancements. These are within the skill tree to the d for the provided mech during the pregame. This would be before entering a match that players would have to take the time to augment the mechs abilities with nodes. Nodes could be purchased with in-game currency and real-life currency. Each node granted a small percent bonus in a specific category which stacked upon each other for grant even bigger bonuses. To change nodes there would be a penalty cost that would be paid in order to change up a mechs bonuses. Most of the times people would need to pay penalties if they wanted to change things up for a build or if a patch came up. The Skill Tree system had a big impact and people agreed with it or really disagreed with it which made it a controversial topic. The blow up of the arguments came discussions hit points like: (1.) in-game currency of time or the in-game currency for real world money was effected, (2.) by competitive necessity upgrading many mechs rather than an option (3.) relearning the game from such a big change. This means these players would be heading online to play MechWarrior Online to quick play, occasionally some faction play, and are placed in the tier system for a full enjoyment of the title with no major issues and some of the best balancing of most of the titles existence. Feeling the balanced play of the weapon systems that showed diverse and contrasting play styles in competitive play of short, medium, heavy, and assault, and a lessening of alpha strike boating load outs that specialize at certain ranges and have multiples of a weapon for predictable play. The Skill Tree had one of its gravest mistakes in its implementation in remaining to have a cost-to-play that effected both entry level, veteran level, and hardcore level player audiences. We will start by talking about where the system had its hardships and failures. It made it difficult and uncomfortable to try out nodes in a Skill Tree build and penalized when the choice wasn’t perfect the first time around and blocked people from spending points else where. While the high amount of experience is acceptable the pain of a skill tree comes from its high consumption of C-bills, being a chore of nodes and calculations with worry of penalization of costs, and regret in play style changing in between matches. This would also effect the variety of builds and length of time the developers themselves would need to wait to see player data, which means the developer would have data, but it wouldn’t be the data that is necessary to build a more efficient system that gets people into quick play faster. So its about time to get to talking about the cost additions. The Cost of the Skill tree would be another layer of difficulty for incoming players with its gained costs, and veterans who have taken investment in the game more than most titles out there were given additional passed on costs. It would feel like a harder game and a more expensive game with an additional learning curve that felt like being able to play the game needed additional investment to feel as if the game was forcing a cost addition to just play the game. To resolve the costs the Experience alone that shows devotion of playing the game to entertain paid players should be enticing. The C-bill costs make for less variety of gameplay with the available mech options, less information of play style variety of effective skill tree design builds, and less understanding of safe versus specialized risky play styles for further skill tree development. While the plan which was in place did reward those who stayed in the game, but many veteran players didn’t feel taken care of in the sense that the cost additions, added pregame time and in game adaptation, and competitive competition had made people leave altogether. Next daunting task was plan plotting nodes (aka. Skill Maze), while tedious, would be necessary to build an optimized skill tree for later. The data would have to be collected to see numbers that point at play style diversity to understand peoples design builds and what works and what doesn’t in node decision making to the exacts. It is good to the developer to have tools to make even better content it may also hurt the people who are looking for a quicker and cheaper way into match making. Players were worried though as time went on with minimal changes within the skill tree system. Eventually the players of MechWarrior Online began to find the safe-fist maximized builds with the skill tree. This allowed them to use node points carefully and with much less worry of losing their points, but in turn caused for low play style diversity with people not wanting to try riskier builds from the penalty system in place. Many players would look up Skill Tree builds and copy them. This leads players to build for Firepower and Survival for lasting effects in game winning conditions over the other options of Mobility, Jump Jets, Operations, Sensors, and Auxiliary. The reason being mobility and jump jets don’t have significant differences in mediums, heavies, and assault class mechs which makes it useful for 25% of the mech selections of lights that depend almost solely on maneuverability. Nodes took a whole lot of time that people were not enjoying, but knew they needed for their experience that absolutely needed the addition of nodes. This brings us now to game time. The reason it is important to measure the time into the game is that people want to play and have fun. This would mean to have a good and quick pace with visuals like icons and interface components to make other parts of the pre-game faster, selection boxes that are organized and can be placed in a specific order, and more that can be properly explained in another article that solely focuses on that. But for now lets get back to the importance that is the skill tree. It should be asked that why the node selections take so long, which is because the reasoning of penalty whenever you change one, so what could help this is by making them penalty free and when you purchase a node it stays with you. The way the skill tree has the panalty system as you collect nodes just wants people to never change play styles or change their nodes and then the skill tree becomes horribly stagnant. It brings then the question of why it exists if its not going to be the change of play style it was designed to be. It is one of the bigger issues that would help the game data immensely for a faster pregame skill tree selection system. So, why is pregame speed important for picking nodes and the skill tree? It needs to be quick, since people want it to assist whatever customized build they have. Because people who came from the MechWarrior franchise of the past most enjoyed of the time spent into the Mech Lab where it would be pretty fun to load out a mech and make serious decisions that are a little bit of the slower side, which is what fans of the game don’t mind due to the focus on load out selection. This doesn’t mean that the nodes and skill tree lose their effects or meaning in the game on the play style effects, but it is just not that interesting in the passive bonuses as it is to select what load outs are going to be used and interacted with in the match. Where the Skill Tree Succeeds, is its changing of play styles to add play style variety to load out builds that made boating a option instead of a necessity. It was necessary for Mech Warrior Online to move forward in the companies vision while also cooperating with people reaching out for a need for in depth game play past pinpoint aim and shoot. This had arisen, because at one point of playing the game the matches would become stale and predictable from being load out dependent. While this was at first from the large amount of players boating... this had continued even with the balances, since there was such a high attention to skill shots and not considering passive effects, a variety of lock on effects, and play style specialized effects. Skill Tree had left the old model of buying three of the same mech that are not wanted and not suited to their play style or choice of wanting but more boxed in to get to complete the skill chart. The feeling it gave players was nothing less then baffled, some felt the game was wasting their time by making it a mech grind fest, and saw junk filling up their selection windows for a necessary slower pregame to hinder the overall experience of getting matches or spending money forcefully and not out of wanting to. Even though it was a choice by the player the incentives were so big that it no longer felt like it was a choice anymore and just made it harder to play the game. By leaving such a bad system in the dust was great because people knew that it was holding the game back. Performances of mechs that were obscure or obsolete and deemed junk had become anew. The introduction of the skill tree was able to passively transform most mechs into viable options by improving it's firepower or survival. As a result there were much wider varieties of mechs being played, while not all mechs were seeing play it still raised the amount of mech variety in games. The nodes acted as Global Quirks that apply to all weapons, speed, armor, etc in a class and not forced to one customize specialization, but it also made the need for quirks to be a question of unnecessary complexity since the Skill Tree fixed apart of the problem Quirks were originally made for but limited players to one or two particular play styles. While the Skill tree offers much more than that. So now if a mech lacks in the radar and its radar sucks it can be an okay radar, got a build for energy? then there are firepower nodes for energy or ballistics or missiles, lacking in targeting then add that too! Some even jokingly called it the “Real Quirk System”, since it resolved certain mech issues that quirks couldn’t. While it still didn’t work with the differences in Clan and IS Technology contrasts it did begin to make people wonder why there couldn’t be an overall list of available equipment to both sides for a better game and placing lore in a much better place like (1.) game flavor of interactions- audio, and design, (2.) quality of life- trial mech rotation number, client performance, and lore immersion. There are always those who leave, but maintaining as many people in the game should be considered, especially with such a large effecting change to the game. While some may think it might be opening an old wound the topic discussion opens up the analysis and understanding of peoples feedback to the situation. This allows for more priceless ideas to enter the circle for people to be taken seriously for a possible change that could get some old players back into the game like the good old days, while making things even better for those joining for the first time. What are people worried about, what are people excited about, what are people thinking about... Mechwarrior Dead Claims last edited: 2/6/2018 The release announcements of MechWarrior 5, the event Esports of Mech Con, and Mystery of the future of MechWarrior gets people asking whats going to happen to MechWarrior Online. The franchise is owned by a spread of license holders which makes for a complicated situation where each group needs convincing for the series to move forward. Since each company owns apart of Battletech it can be difficult at times for clarity in the companies and then over to the communication with the fans. Judging MechWarrior Online at different times can be a hard idea to follow. Things shouldn’t become forgotten in the series of promises, but understanding that the game at its “Beta” is not the same game it is today. This means saying things or asking for certain fixes that might have been for back then may not be relevant in todays MWO. It is equally as easy to say there are flaws and lumps, sayings of you can’t make everyone happy, but the real idea is to make many people happy. Things can always be better and pushed through analytics and suggestions of discussion, so in that case every time the game is talked about it is a great way to say the game is very much alive. This leads us up to calling MechWarrior Online dead due to MechWarrior 5. The title is said to be a traditional single player campaign, Co-Op options, Modding options, and much of the information is yet to be released. This being said there is no confirmation of no multiplayer and fans have theorized it to be so no internal game projects clashes with another. This separates MechWarrior 5 with single-player from MechWarrior Online that remains multi-player. This means there is all sorts of possibilities when the title comes out and that PGI may use it as a single player experimentation setting for things to happen, or it could just be testing out the success of single player, but only the company itself would know its direction. Salt has been in no short supply for MechWarrior online, since its launch with every patch some salt thrown, every major change a bag of salt pour, and nothing seems to pass the toxicity in peoples posts. It creates a toxic user environment that is then fed by people going all out into their vision by not explaining exactly how and leaves the argument in a accusation of ruining the game before any testing could even take place, or if any numbers could be accounted for, or if there is any statement that could further define confusing points of whats happening in implementation or practice. The White Cloud of opinions start swarming in packs of negativity that are hard to navigate through and is seen as a possible damage control of the games reputation. What this means is that insults cover the land with minimal facts about why they are angry, but what this also means is crucial criticism that could actually could help the situation can be cought in the crossfire. Not only does it punish the players insulting, but the critiques, and the opinion statements, so no one wins on either side. This was most apparent when the Skill Tree was introduced and brought wide attention to MechWarrior Online. What could have been managed through communication had been not handled in time to stop the burning flame of negativity that had already grown. The event had drew even more attention to it when retaliation of the company began banning accounts and the fanbase begun to go on a PGI witch hunt. While i won’t agree that either side was right in this matter, I will state that both groups of developer and fanbase had begin to be swallowed by the negativity. This in conclusion had made everyone involved at that time ask the question of why they play MechWarrior Online. This brought old debates back into the online community that were talked about on social media and in game. Statements referring to lost promises from the company, saying MechWarrior Online is a dead game, or people threatening to leave the game and making a big deal about it. After awhile it seems like each person wants to fight about the games direction without seeking any sort of whats good fro the game itself resolve to it all. The numbers of players per day could be higher, but the game has survived this long, so they are not counted out yet. There are also those who took the changes in each patch or mechanic in stride and saw it as a fresh start. Some might have been worried from the lack of notice people may have gotten from developers in wondering where their points were all going...But the lesson from the skill tree event is that people had to learn to adapt upcoming mechanic changes, fans always need reinforcement that their points will be safe, and that discussions and talking must occur even with some of the most toxic of people with warnings and levels of suspension before the ban hammer drops. It really pushed the message that the community, developers, and players alike need to keep in mind to voice concerns, state a case for the problem and at least try to problem solve it, and then keep the salt to a respectable minimum to keep conversations from blowing up. Moving on over that time is why many people thought that MechWarrior Online had really taken its fall before the skill tree even came about. The reputation would need time as its healing factor of people seeing the game move steadily onward for people to comprehend that the game was still going be holding on to its namesake. People would look at the number of players and still see not bad numbers, people would see how long match making took and still would find matches, and the leaderboard would also prove that the game kept chugging along the train track. There would have a small amount of new players who weren’t effected by the flame wars who played occasionally to check back on the games fun factor in matches. There were those who still played matches and avoided the crossfire altogether to let things settle down before stating their opinions months later, and some had taken a partial leave until months later as well. This was a bump in the road and didn’t help PGI in their attempts to get much more people interested for more support that they had wanted. The reason it was a bump was that the casuals help fuel the player count in matches, help whales and veterans gain easy kills or pass on their skills, and word of mouth had been bad at the time for various games in the same genre. And then we have the dedicated fans who are known as the Hardcore audience that really loves something had continued to play as well. These are the people who have been attached to the niche from the Battletech brand. It comes down to people talking about the factions, the mechs, and characters from the products. They will be a continual following of the MechWarrior series and see those who don’t seek constructive criticism and choose insult accusation as people who have lost their love for MechWarrior Online and don’t want it to continue without them involved. It is known that people tend to gravitate toward a certain function, mechanic, or faction depending on when and how they got into Battletech and it is important to respect that. It all boils down to their argument of change that would need to be self identified for the person to stop plaguing those around them with insult accusation statements to make a unhealthy environment for the player base. Developers get a hard time for taking things into consideration of what makes the whole entirety of the game work. This means many peoples point of views with the play styles, peoples reasons for playing, and what draws people back into playing the title with their friends. It may seem like they are not listening at times, however they have to sort out all the suggestions, and sometimes all the words might become noise on places like a forum. There are alternatives like video and blog articles, but it has to be sorted well where people can further expand on ideas in a objective way without tearing each other apart. At the end of the day for better or worse the developer PGI is the one who makes the final say in how the series moves on and what will change for players in the pursuit of a fun game for many to enjoy. Observations fans have stated is that they feel “Quick Play” is doing quite well overall and the balance is not perfect, but getting better by each patch. Players still look forward to “Faction Play” but have many opinions on wishes for its improvement and development to make it a contrasting game type from quick play. It has been said that PGI is still recognized in its rebuilding of the MechWarrior series from the ground up, running a huge server with data analysis in its numbers, and bringing the Battletech community back with its game title. While the loudest players only complain there are a sizable amount of people who do know that PGI has delivered what they could, keeps the community informed with limited staff, and understands that some of the things they may have promised may have been them being caught up in the excitement of the title. It leaves people in a situation on the gripes of Faction Play, Contrasting Playstyles, and Overall handling of communication and information is hard to look away from. But, with the time people have been with the game it seems like it is possibly one of the most enjoyable mech games out there with its clunky unique tank like torso shooting. The mech selection is great and the mechanics are progressing slowly and is different from any other MechWarrior game. Even with all the problems and the issues with all the fun and potential the game has its hard not to not have the game stuck in your head. The balancing and added in-game fighting with experiments for play styles in different ways really get the mind going in hoping for the games success and that problems can be addressed and fixed at some point. Especially with the development of other Battletech titles like MechWarrior 5 from PGI, and Battletech from Hairbrained Schemes lorecentric interface, and Catalysts story telling it gives people a rooted desire and the needed exposure to what the game could be. The development of MechWarrior in general from its revitalization has been really refreshing and as much as a complaint is needed, so is a awareness of how ridiculously commendable it is to take on such a game franchise. This does not deter from the main message of the journey had its lessons and the game still survives. This was not to get the MechWarrior community or Battletech Universe Community on any particular side, or to go out and support PGI and if your not your apart of the problem, or to play the game itself. This should mark as a reminder that we all have a choice to play or not play a game and have a right to the opinion of something dead or alive. It should also speak to those reading this that people should still be critical of the game and state all their points of how they feel, what they see, and how to respect one another in doing so. It just goes to show that discussion and conflict is necessary for the ideas to grow and expand passed their origins and into something bigger and better for the progress of a game title. Allowing people to hear the fact of acknowledgement that the game does need some fixes in some areas, the plan on executing something at some point means alot to the players, and it helps see what people arent happy with and having them at least try to tackle the problem makes players feel good. There is no doubt that PGI will continue to try and make their title even better, which is a very good thing, even though it might take sometime with other titles being in the works. Stand tall and look forward on a clean slate. There are many good patches and adventures awaiting the coming months. Mechwarrior Toxicity Discussions last edited: 2/23/2018 We finally have a decent amount of time between the incidents of when accusations, threats, and discrediting was sent to my private messages when articles that were being worked on were released for discussion. So looking back it seemed that controversial things tend to be high discussion points, but have a tendency to go nasty if people let their emotions grab the better of them and things go sour without being civil. The harsh learning a lesson of passion and the unshakable fandom that is in discussions can come out in a multitude of ways.
Every persons opinion matters to the loremasters who enjoy the tabletops, to the mechwarrior player thats into shooters, to the casual to hardcore level players, to the team killing troll who is anti PGI, and even those who are civil players who respectfully play the game for what it is, to the elitist game players who claim they are awesome. The thing is each persons voice can count and that it needs to be heard and discussed or else issues will continue to repeat themselves as a sort of predictable cycle. Especially if it isn’t easy to access with broken search engines, mountains of forum posts, or social media where topics disappear as fast as they came. This was realized in a article i wrote about raising awareness of an issue of online hate as well as asking people if the content that was discussed was even wanted. The presence of the articles have made some people feel uneasy, but alot of people on the discussions had actually enjoyed the diversity that it brought to their post feeds. Some stated that people hate when people take action and are possibly signs that they had given up all hope and are frustrated in previous attempts at discussions being ignored. Some had even recognized that articles were filled with passion and love for the franchise and the wishes each post had for development and discussions. On the other end with a few statements being negative had gone with going full on bashing the issues and treating them as the end of the games vitality. This would be a different perspective of the articles to create a stir of passionate rage that was directed to the writer. This direction had shown the many reasons people play or don’t play the MechWarrior Online game with their attempts at weakening the discussion through complaints of what it lacked over what it could improve over. Several people had voiced the the game should never change, and some people stated that the game would die with further development. This felt like it was a way to dismiss discussion or avoid it altogether by treating it as insignificant to consider other peoples views. At first things were pretty upsetting and the keyboard warriors really had gotten the wrong buttons pressed where things felt grim. There was no new visuals drawn, there was no new developments in writing articles, and there wasnt any more interfaces currently being worked on for the people. It brought up the issue that was being brought to the community about what to do with the messages that are pretty common online. The typical hate messages, irritation rants, and pointing the finger so to speak with a particular message sticking out more than the rest that was showing their anger about bringing up any sort of MechWarrior discussions. This person was not revealed by name and it was suggested that this person not be flamed or bashed, attacked or put down, but a question of the benefits of article writing and talking about it. The message recieved was on 11/3/17 “Get wrecked Matt, you make horrible cuts bleed in your posts and bring a pain to the MWO group page community. You have all these thin skinned adults all grinding on your art when you just came here. You need to post less and give us real results so people can face the realities of game developers not giving a F!@#!@$ about their player base. Stop fabricating hope. It’s annoying.” The message didn’t deserve an argument in being disrespectful, but the person was given a response to cool them down. The person was probably viewing things from being experienced and highly skilled in the game title and with a prideful point of view. This would mean a lesser view of those who haven’t put in the work for becoming skilled and pointing at beginning or casual players and to those who weren’t following the title for the same or longer amount of time. They also allowed themselves to be separated as the willfully ignorant and placing those who discuss the title as a select crowd that are wishful thinkers, so naturally it was important to explain the perspective of wishful thinkers. The difference between those who choose to discuss a topic and contribute to making a difference in parts of the game is a way to fully understand. With understanding there can be better discussions that move the whole topic forward with solid ideas that can be seen for what they are in the points themselves. But, as it is the internet there are alot of other people who choose to look the other way on a topic and keep trying to silence the discussion in hopes of things never changing. This is where situations happen where people can easily cherry pick what they like about the game and discount all the rest of everyone elses opinions as a way to hurt the title. Putting others down for their opinion can make people feel bad and it never shows the care to know about the persons background of investment in the series either, so it could make the offended party look like a spoiled brat if it ever comes to light. While not all people are into the Battletech Universe there are many out there that had gave the game a try because MechWarrior Online was based on it. People come together for the long lore legacies, the interesting technology and hint of cyber punk, big stompy robots called mechs, and shooter genre combat. People have their own histories growing up with the series, some even draw and program projects that extends the nostalgia factor, and some are even brand new players that are curious to go figure everything out. It would be horrible to never figure the stories of this people and say they are flat out wrong about everything they enjoy from the series from their personal experience with it, or their reasons for playing the MechWarrior series, or their own connection they made throughout their bond of the title. Being civil is an important part of keeping the integrity of the discussion to inform those who don’t know who want to know, state a opinion that could gain some traction, or just state the obvious or joke around to keep the conversation going. Too much toxicity and harshness can bring down peoples spirits into discussing anything about MechWarrior at all and prevents people from stating their opinion in staying reserved in consideration of a flame war. Pretending that things can’t be discussed and that someone is right and someone is wrong with a black and white without taking time to look at the grey in between. That very idea can stand between moving everything forward or stopping the discussions in their tracks with people insisting that their way is superior without considering all the angles one could tackle a complex topic as game development.
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