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.
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December 2018
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