Piranha Games announces their new title - Transverse

[Roadbeer]

So after months of claiming that their production has been slowed by an inability to find staff to work on Mechwarrior: Online, a game which many features remain unimplemented, broken or horribly buggy, they were able to find the 'talent' to begin production on a whole new title...

http://transversegame.com/


Enjoy.

EDIT:
Added new games actual name and website now that the teaser has passed.

 

[Sandpit]

PGI, after 3 years in development, still has not delivered promised features after making over $5million in crowdfunding. They have repeatedly lied to their customers about development, features, and deadlines. They have banned anyone who criticizes them for this even without having broken their ToS. They recently announced a new game they'll be developing and have banned any and all customers who are questioning the start of a new project even though MWO hasn't even been completed with core features promised 3 years ago. Unfortunately they've made millions from customers and then banned those customers all the while repeatedly and consistently ignoring their customers.

Some of us are hoping that larger news outlets such as yours will take a look and expose companies like this in order to save other potential customers from handing money over to unprofessional companies like this. The president, community manager, and several other high-ranking company officers have openly mocked, trolled, and dismissed customers on twitter, facebook, their own website, etc. It is time that companies like this were held accountable for their actions and letting other customers know what kind of company they're dealing with before handing over hundreds and thousands (yes some have spent thousands) to this company

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I learned a while ago not to give companies money based on promises. If you gave this company money based on promises made three years ago then you're a chump. Only pay for games when they have the features that you want, and if they don't have those features don't buy them just based on the promise that they might get those features in the future. The future is nebulous and unpredictable and even the best companies are neither your friends nor worth trusting at their word.

If this shitstorm teaches people not to trust companies with their money before they've delivered on their promises than that can only be a good thing.

 

[ipox]

If this shitstorm teaches people not to trust companies with their money before they've delivered on their promises than that can only be a good thing.

I agree that people need to be careful. I disagree that it's "a good thing" that we should have to be so cynical. Crowdfunding SHOULD be a wonderful jumpstarter for all manner of things and it SHOULD be possible to verify the process. I point at the wonderful Harebrained Schemes led by Jordan Weisman and their successful and transparent Shadowrun Returns and Golem Arcana processes. Several others come to mind as well.

As always, a few dorks like the PGI leadership will ruin what could/SHOULD be an amazing and useful independent-development driver to give us real games that aren't "guaranteed hits" (i.e. the only thing "real publishers" will back these days). It is the shady business practices of those FEW dorks who will colour the entire process brown and leave us with even more cynical, vapid Hollywoodianism.

F U, PGI: you took my beloved Battletech/Mechwarrior and probably permanently stained it brown. Somewhere in your boardroom, I'm sure you're blaming your community, too.

PS: "Community Warfare" is a TERRIBLE NAME.

 

[RebasKradd]

The two most salient matters at hand are this (much of the rest of the criticism is unfounded):

* PGI has been presumably developing a second project for months without having the resources to adequately develop the game (MechWarrior Online) that originally funded them. It's true that nobody has yet proven that MWO's original crowdfunding was sent anywhere but MWO. It's also true that it's industry standard not to announce a project until well into its development cycle. But all that is irrelevant. With F2P crowdfunding should arguably come different principles. Crowdfunding is investment, and PGI's investors deserve to be prioritized, no matter what else is going on.

* One of MWO's most anticipated features, Community Warfare (planets being fought over in a persistent-state universe), was delayed for 18 months, while PGI repeatedly offered up "90 days" commitments and then allowed the deadlines to pass without acknowledgement. The reasons - severe engine issues, technical debt, issues with the license from Microsoft - are satisfactory to this customer, but the timing of their disclosure - over a year late, through back channels, simultaneous with a new sale campaign, and only in response to backlask instead of up-front - was not. PGI's PR missteps have cost them a lot of credibility, and its players deserve more openness and dialogue from the developers they're paying.

 

[Roadbeer]

I learned a while ago not to give companies money based on promises. If you gave this company money based on promises made three years ago then you're a chump. Only pay for games when they have the features that you want, and if they don't have those features don't buy them just based on the promise that they might get those features in the future. The future is nebulous and unpredictable and even the best companies are neither your friends nor worth trusting at their word.

If this shitstorm teaches people not to trust companies with their money before they've delivered on their promises than that can only be a good thing.

Sorry man, but crowdfunding is how games are going get made now, that is unless you enjoy the tripe that keeps getting shoveled out by the big publishing houses, then by all means, carry on.

You sometimes have to take a leap of faith with a game you WANT to see made and show it support. And if/when it doesn't pan out, just like with the Better Business Bureau, and YELP or Travelcity reviews, you need to let people know.

 

[Punkass]

I learned a while ago not to give companies money based on promises. If you gave this company money based on promises made three years ago then you're a chump. Only pay for games when they have the features that you want, and if they don't have those features don't buy them just based on the promise that they might get those features in the future. The future is nebulous and unpredictable and even the best companies are neither your friends nor worth trusting at their word.

If this shitstorm teaches people not to trust companies with their money before they've delivered on their promises than that can only be a good thing.

That still doesn't excuse 3 years of the carrot-on-stick treatment to people who helped MWO see the light of day in the first place. It's one thing if people buy into a closed beta and at the end of the day the developer simply can't implement all of the features they wanted to because they were too ambitious in the first place. It's another to string people along, telling them that a certain feature is due to be released a few months from now, and then extend the timetable once that time comes. And then do it again...and again. Without so much as explanation why the timetable is being extended. Sometimes no mention of the timetable passing at all.

Look, I understand, the buyer should beware, and with any sort of founders/beta buy-in there's the potential for abuse. But that doesn't mean the company gets off the hook when abuse happens. So, because of that, I cannot in good conscience recommend any product from PGI.

 

[Treysef]

These accounts were definitely made just to cry about PGI. In fact, Sandpit linked this thread to reddit.com to try to drum up support. I had to make an account here to dispel some of the lies he's posting.

MWO's Founders program didn't start until June 19th, 2012. Open beta started on October 29th, 2012. That's hardly three years like he claims, in fact it's been approximately 2 years and 2 months since the start of the closed beta. All of the features that were promised in the Founders program(mech piloting, customization, upgrades, c-bills, EXP and skills, see source) were available at the start of open beta. I should know, I started less than a week after it opened.

Source: http://mwomercs.com/news/2012/06/288-founders-package-on-sale-now

The "core features" he's talking about is actually one feature, dubbed Community Warfare("CW"). It's supposed to be the planetary conquest of the Inner Sphere following the invasion of the Clans, fought between player-run units. While it's true this feature isn't in the game yet, it wasn't really even talked about until 2013 and didn't have an official outline from PGI until the "launch party" PGI held on September 26th, 2013, not even a year ago. That's quite a stretch from about one year to three. I admit, it has been about twice as long as they promised for CW to be released but we were actually told about the push back, unlike Sandpit would like you to believe. PGI ended up having to redo the entire UI system from the ground up as well as rewriting much of the Crytek code to fit their needs. We were told that the features needed to have CW functioning would have to be put on hold until the new UI was pushed out.

Development was slow throughout 2013 due to the UI rework followed directly by Crytek rewrites but we still saw improvements to the game during that time. Host-State Rewind(HSR) to make less-than-desirable pings still playable, netcode improvements for better hit detection overall, multiple new mechs and I believe it was 4 new maps. The game was "officially" launched on September 17th and the aforementioned launch party was held 9 days later.

Since then we've actually seen a huge uptick in activity. Massive bug fixing for missile detection, individual balance changes to weapons, an overarching heat system for weapon balancing(no matter how much certain players decry it, it works in keeping time-to-kill down), more front end UI improvements, frequent sales, event weekends and giveaways, even an official tournament held by PGI. Clan mechs were released July 17th, 2014 and have actually had balance changes done to them almost every patch since, including a huge balance patch just this week.

We are even starting to see parts of CW emerge now, though they are admittedly late. After the "6 months after release" debacle PGI started to set realistic goals for releasing features. Unit creation was released last month, only a week beyond the restated goal, along with the inital star map for planetary conquest. If PGI can keep hitting deadlines like they have been doing for the better part of the year, we'll see the next CW feature either at the end of this month or the beginning of next month. There are also two new maps in the works, one of which was recently play tested on the public test servers.

 

[Roadbeer]

These accounts were definitely made just to cry about PGI. In fact, Sandpit linked this thread to reddit.com to try to drum up support. I had to make an account here to dispel some of the lies he's posting.

MWO's Founders program didn't start until June 19th, 2012. Open beta started on October 29th, 2012. That's hardly three years like he claims, in fact it's been approximately 2 years and 2 months since the start of the closed beta. All of the features that were promised in the Founders program(mech piloting, customization, upgrades, c-bills, EXP and skills, see source) were available at the start of open beta. I should know, I started less than a week after it opened.

Source: http://mwomercs.com/news/2012/06/288-founders-package-on-sale-now

The "core features" he's talking about is actually one feature, dubbed Community Warfare("CW"). It's supposed to be the planetary conquest of the Inner Sphere following the invasion of the Clans, fought between player-run units. While it's true this feature isn't in the game yet, it wasn't really even talked about until 2013 and didn't have an official outline from PGI until the "launch party" PGI held on September 26th, 2013, not even a year ago. That's quite a stretch from about one year to three. I admit, it has been about twice as long as they promised for CW to be released but we were actually told about the push back, unlike Sandpit would like you to believe. PGI ended up having to redo the entire UI system from the ground up as well as rewriting much of the Crytek code to fit their needs. We were told that the features needed to have CW functioning would have to be put on hold until the new UI was pushed out.

Development was slow throughout 2013 due to the UI rework followed directly by Crytek rewrites but we still saw improvements to the game during that time. Host-State Rewind(HSR) to make less-than-desirable pings still playable, netcode improvements for better hit detection overall, multiple new mechs and I believe it was 4 new maps. The game was "officially" launched on September 17th and the aforementioned launch party was held 9 days later.

Since then we've actually seen a huge uptick in activity. Massive bug fixing for missile detection, individual balance changes to weapons, an overarching heat system for weapon balancing(no matter how much certain players decry it, it works in keeping time-to-kill down), more front end UI improvements, frequent sales, event weekends and giveaways, even an official tournament held by PGI. Clan mechs were released July 17th, 2014 and have actually had balance changes done to them almost every patch since, including a huge balance patch just this week.

We are even starting to see parts of CW emerge now, though they are admittedly late. After the "6 months after release" debacle PGI started to set realistic goals for releasing features. Unit creation was released last month, only a week beyond the restated goal, along with the inital star map for planetary conquest. If PGI can keep hitting deadlines like they have been doing for the better part of the year, we'll see the next CW feature either at the end of this month or the beginning of next month. There are also two new maps in the works, one of which was recently play tested on the public test servers.

Didn't read after I read your fist paragraph and saw your join date. Pot meet kettle. Looks like you came running here to defend PGI's honor. And the rest of your post are just copypasta from PGI Press releases.

But if you look at my join date, you'll see I predate almost everyone here, including you, by almost a decade, and I'm the OP. It's the first time I felt compelled to write about something.

 

[Treysef]

Didn't read after I read your fist paragraph and saw your join date. Pot meet kettle. Looks like you came running here to defend PGI's honor.

But if you look at my join date, you'll see I predate almost everyone here, including you, by almost a decade, and I'm the OP. It's the first time I felt compelled to write about something.

Yes, you've been a member on this website for 10 years, congrats, but you've still only made 4 posts total and 3 of them are in this topic. Besides, you're just trying to distract from post by waving your join date e-peen. No one cares when you joined this website and I even admitted in my post that I was linked here from reddit by Sandpit and had to make an account to post.

How about you actually rebut my post instead of straw manning it up?

 

[Roadbeer]

Didn't read after I read your fist paragraph and saw your join date. Pot meet kettle. Looks like you came running here to defend PGI's honor.

But if you look at my join date, you'll see I predate almost everyone here, including you, by almost a decade, and I'm the OP. It's the first time I felt compelled to write about something.

Yes, you've been a member on this website for 10 years, congrats, but you've still only made 4 posts total and 3 of them are in this topic. Besides, you're just trying to distract from post by waving your join date e-peen. No one cares when you joined this website and I even admitted in my post that I was linked here from reddit by Sandpit and had to make an account to post.

How about you actually rebut my post instead of straw manning it up?

Well, you made issue of it, I called you on it, now you feel silly. I understand.

So, you actually want me to pick apart the PGI talking points that you've c/ped. Ok.

These accounts were definitely made just to cry about PGI. In fact, Sandpit linked this thread to reddit.com to try to drum up support. I had to make an account here to dispel some of the lies he's posting.

MWO's Founders program didn't start until June 19th, 2012. Open beta started on October 29th, 2012. That's hardly three years like he claims, in fact it's been approximately 2 years and 2 months since the start of the closed beta. All of the features that were promised in the Founders program(mech piloting, customization, upgrades, c-bills, EXP and skills, see source) were available at the start of open beta. I should know, I started less than a week after it opened.

Source: http://mwomercs.com/news/2012/06/288-founders-package-on-sale-now

The "core features" he's talking about is actually one feature, dubbed Community Warfare("CW"). It's supposed to be the planetary conquest of the Inner Sphere following the invasion of the Clans, fought between player-run units. While it's true this feature isn't in the game yet, it wasn't really even talked about until 2013 and didn't have an official outline from PGI until the "launch party" PGI held on September 26th, 2013, not even a year ago. That's quite a stretch from about one year to three. I admit, it has been about twice as long as they promised for CW to be released but we were actually told about the push back, unlike Sandpit would like you to believe. PGI ended up having to redo the entire UI system from the ground up as well as rewriting much of the Crytek code to fit their needs. We were told that the features needed to have CW functioning would have to be put on hold until the new UI was pushed out.

Where to begin with this...
1. Ok, there are more core features than just the "Community Warfare" (terrible name). As of the "4 Pillars" that were announced in the original Dev Post 0, only 1 of them is actually in. Information Warfare and Role Warfare have yet to be implemented in any meaningful way in addition to "Community Warfare". This isn't just my opinion, one only need to look at the forums and the litany of "WTF" posts to see that the opinion is widespread.
2. Community Warfare was not only in the original design document (not, as you suggest 2013, but EARLY 2012) and was announced to be released "Within 90 days of Open Beta", which was November 2012, putting the release date in Q1 2013. After the date passed, the topic was completely ignored for the first half of 2013 until it was once again put on the roadmap and stated to be "within 90 days after Launch" which was 1 year ago this month, putting the implementation date around December 2013. In the "State of the Inner Sphere" address from Russ Bullock in December of 2013, he said that CW would "Conservatively be fully implemented by September or October of 2014". Here we are in September and it's only phase 2 (technically phase 3 because they called their "Launch Module" Phase 1, then completely forgot they did that) of what was slated to be a 4 phase project.
3. Just because Project Inception didn't begin until June of 2012, where they let the "Founders" purchasers in, there was the "Friends and Family" phase of the ALPHA testers which started in Q1 2012, this was rudamentary late ALPHA, early BETA, but coding had actually began sometime in 2011, so technically, the project IS 3 years old, just not full access to it.

Development was slow throughout 2013 due to the UI rework followed directly by Crytek rewrites but we still saw improvements to the game during that time. Host-State Rewind(HSR) to make less-than-desirable pings still playable, netcode improvements for better hit detection overall, multiple new mechs and I believe it was 4 new maps. The game was "officially" launched on September 17th and the aforementioned launch party was held 9 days later.

Compared to 2014, 2013 was a flurry of activity, they were still in BETA mode. And while I agree, they did release several maps, and Pay/free content in the forms of avatars and cockpit flair, there wasn't a single feature released in 2013 and as admitted by Russ Bullock in the "State of the Inner Sphere" address, this was because they were not sure they would have the licence for MechWarrior past 2016 (You can read that as they were phoning it in until they were sure they could keep it) but all the while they had no problem selling content that was frequently launched P2W then nerfed to uselessness. Also, in 2013, they missed EVERY deadline set out in their own roadmap, by months, if not completely abandoned, until they just completely removed the roadmap from the site all together. It wasn't until December 2013 when they released a new one.

Since then we've actually seen a huge uptick in activity. Massive bug fixing for missile detection, individual balance changes to weapons, an overarching heat system for weapon balancing(no matter how much certain players decry it, it works in keeping time-to-kill down), more front end UI improvements, frequent sales, event weekends and giveaways, even an official tournament held by PGI. Clan mechs were released July 17th, 2014 and have actually had balance changes done to them almost every patch since, including a huge balance patch just this week.

Since their "Launch" in September of 2013, every single feature (Let me restate that) EVERY SINGLE FEATURE has been put in the game broken, unuseable and required numerous patches and hotfixes as it made the game unplayable (The last one I experienced before leaving the game was when they launched the new UI and having a friends list of over 200 would crash the client if you went in the social tab, this took 6 weeks to fix).
Their new UI was several steps back from the one they used in early Closed BETA and all feature production was halted so they could work on their latest cash grab "The Clans" where 24 new avatars were sold in packages ranging from $30 - $500.
It has been the culture that anything they sell arrives on time and working, but anything that is free is broken or useless.
In the 3 years of development, there are only 10 maps and 1 game mode that can be played 3 different ways. Private matches require "Premium Time" in which there is no reward for playing, and only recently was the ability to play with more than 3 of your friends added as it was determined that "84% of their players launch solo"(In a multi-player game? WTF?)

We are even starting to see parts of CW emerge now, though they are admittedly late. After the "6 months after release" debacle PGI started to set realistic goals for releasing features. Unit creation was released last month, only a week beyond the restated goal, along with the inital star map for planetary conquest. If PGI can keep hitting deadlines like they have been doing for the better part of the year, we'll see the next CW feature either at the end of this month or the beginning of next month. There are also two new maps in the works, one of which was recently play tested on the public test servers.

There is nothing in this I'm not just laughing at. The "Star Map" is just a broken, non-interactive image taken from Sarna.net.

On the whole PGI has shit all over the 30-year franchise that is Battletech/Mechwarrior and released something that can only be called MechWarrior: In Name Only

 

[Sandpit]

http://i.imgur.com/BV4zqv3.jpg

just to help lend credibility to my claims I've included a screenshot of the post that got me permabanned

 

[Treysef]

Well, you made issue of it, I called you on it, now you feel silly. I understand.

So, you actually want me to pick apart the PGI talking points that you've c/ped. Ok.

Actually, MarsAtlas brought up the fact that these accounts were made specifically for this topic, I'm just confirming his suspicions.

Where to begin with this...
1. Ok, there are more core features than just the "Community Warfare" (terrible name). As of the "4 Pillars" that were announced in the original Dev Post 0, only 1 of them is actually in. Information Warfare and Role Warfare have yet to be implemented in any meaningful way in addition to "Community Warfare". This isn't just my opinion, one only need to look at the forums and the litany of "WTF" posts to see that the opinion is widespread.
2. Community Warfare was not only in the original design document (not, as you suggest 2013, but EARLY 2012) and was announced to be released "Within 90 days of Open Beta", which was November 2012, putting the release date in Q1 2013. After the date passed, the topic was completely ignored for the first half of 2013 until it was once again put on the roadmap and stated to be "within 90 days after Launch" which was 1 year ago this month, putting the implementation date around December 2013. In the "State of the Inner Sphere" address from Russ Bullock in December of 2013, he said that CW would "Conservatively be fully implemented by September or October of 2014". Here we are in September and it's only phase 2 (technically phase 3 because they called their "Launch Module" Phase 1, then completely forgot they did that) of what was slated to be a 4 phase project.
3. Just because Project Inception didn't begin until June of 2012, where they let the "Founders" purchasers in, there was the "Friends and Family" phase of the ALPHA testers which started in Q1 2012, this was rudamentary late ALPHA, early BETA, but coding had actually began sometime in 2011, so technically, the project IS 3 years old, just not full access to it.

Role Warfare and Information Warfare are pretty much there when you look at the few dev posts talking about them. The Dev Blog 0 you're talking about only has the word "pillar" twice and of the "four pillars" only one is actually mentioned, Information Warfare. In the very first Dev Diary Russ Bullock talks about how it wants these features to be implemented.

He talks about how Information Warfare is about how the targeting is shared between teammates instead of active radar like in the old MW titles, how you'll the goal is the need to scout and actively look for your enemy. This is true in MW:O today and has even been expanded with ECM, UAV, and Seismic Sensors. If the enemy has ECM you can't just hope for that blip to tell you where they are. If you carry Seismic you can get information before you even see the enemy, but only if they're fairly close. Keeping in cover, moving unseen, throwing that UAV up just behind the enemy, this is a thing in MW:O today.

He also talks about Role Warfare and how instead of just earning your way to the biggest mech you'll instead be able to be effective in smaller mechs. Is it not true that Light and Medium mechs can hold their own on the battlefield and contribute to the team? ECM lights, NARC/TAG spotters, harassers, DFS, skirmishers/brawlers, strikers, LRM support, there are tons of roles to fill and each one has been becoming more and more viable as the balance progresses.

As of the "State of the Inner Sphere" post you're quoting, only the Launch Module, Association, and Planetary Conquest were the missing components of Community Warfare. The Launch Module, or private lobby system for those uninvolved, was released on time. Association, creation of units and aligning with in-universe factions, was released on time. All that is left is the Planetary Conquest section, of which they have 2 full months to deliver on to meet the deadline(it's the beginning of September in case you forgot).

The project may have started coding before 2012 but saying that these features have been pushed back since then is an absolutely lie. At that point it was just musings on the direction the game was going to take, not set-in-stone features.

Compared to 2014, 2013 was a flurry of activity, they were still in BETA mode. And while I agree, they did release several maps, and Pay/free content in the forms of avatars and cockpit flair, there wasn't a single feature released in 2013 and as admitted by Russ Bullock in the "State of the Inner Sphere" address, this was because they were not sure they would have the licence for MechWarrior past 2016 (You can read that as they were phoning it in until they were sure they could keep it) but all the while they had no problem selling content that was frequently launched P2W then nerfed to uselessness. Also, in 2013, they missed EVERY deadline set out in their own roadmap, by months, if not completely abandoned, until they just completely removed the roadmap from the site all together. It wasn't until December 2013 when they released a new one.

Since their "Launch" in September of 2013, every single feature (Let me restate that) EVERY SINGLE FEATURE has been put in the game broken, unuseable and required numerous patches and hotfixes as it made the game unplayable (The last one I experienced before leaving the game was when they launched the new UI and having a friends list of over 200 would crash the client if you went in the social tab, this took 6 weeks to fix).
Their new UI was several steps back from the one they used in early Closed BETA and all feature production was halted so they could work on their latest cash grab "The Clans" where 24 new avatars were sold in packages ranging from $30 - $500.
It has been the culture that anything they sell arrives on time and working, but anything that is free is broken or useless.

Between these two paragraphs, I'm really confused. 2013 was a flurry of activity compared to 2014, but in 2013 we had no features and in 2014 we've had multiple features? 2013 was the year of stale balance, where most of the changes being made to the game were mech and map additions and back-end work for Crytek improvements and eventual UI2.0 implementations. We got 12v12, a few maps, mechs, HSR, netcode work, heat scaling, and I believe ECM came at the beginning of the year; I'm not sure, it has been almost two(not three) years after all.

2014 has given us private lobbies, tons of missile code fixes, UI2.0, unit creation, tons of mech hitbox reworks, multiple game changing balance patches, an assload of mechs, and hopefully the final piece of the much requested CW.

Sure, 2013 seems like it had more stuff but the stuff it had wasn't quite as visible and important as things like UI2.0 and private lobbies.

In the 3 years of development, there are only 10 maps and 1 game mode that can be played 3 different ways. Private matches require "Premium Time" in which there is no reward for playing, and only recently was the ability to play with more than 3 of your friends added as it was determined that "84% of their players launch solo"(In a multi-player game? WTF?)


There is nothing in this I'm not just laughing at. The "Star Map" is just a broken, non-interactive image taken from Sarna.net.

On the whole PGI has shit all over the 30-year franchise that is Battletech/Mechwarrior and released something that can only be called MechWarrior: In Name Only

Just because you personally play every game mode as TDM doesn't mean they're the same. The different game modes certainly make people play the maps differently. Conquest on Alpine means avoid Tryhard Hill. Assault in general means you can pull enemy attention by attacking turrets or capping the base and you have to be wary in general for base rushes.

Yeah, premium for non-12v12 private matches suck, I'd rather not have that. However, they've been giving out premium a lot recently and many people run it all the time so finding people for private matches isn't ever really a problem.

If you remember correctly you could group up to a full 8 in the public queue back in the 8v8 days. It was absolutely awful and killed the fun. They made it 4 max to help fix the public queue and it was certainly necessary at the time. Now that they've reworked the matchmaker and introduced 12v12 we're in a completely different situation than we were when group sizes were originally limited.

The Star Map is certainly not broken, the graphical errors were fixed in the next patch. It's also interactive, though it's not very deep yet, but what do you want out of a map? It's a map, in it's essence it is just an image. You can find planets all the way in the deep periphery, the Pentagon worlds and Clan home worlds are out there, and when the next portion of CW drops we'll actually have planetary conquest.

If you think PGI are the ones that shat on the IP then you're absolutely blind to the past. MechAssault and MechAssault 2? MW4? Microsoft has already done that, PGI brought the IP back from the grave.

 

[The Blue Star]

A Universe to Explore, this is a PGI game...

unfortunately these are people whom use IP's and founders packs like dodgy cars salesmen, abuse and use manufacturers brands to entice you into death traps and years worth of mechanical and costly fails.

my own experience is buying one of their mech packs for the abortion that is MWO, the pack i purchased is known as a Phoenix Overlord, http://mwo.gamepedia.com/Project_Phoenix

there are supposed to be loyalty points delivered in this pack {the main reason i brought it} these were announced june 2013 and "delivered" in october... but the loyalty points they sold me didn't turn up.

It has been over a year since the announcement and I still haven't received what I?ve payed for after numerous deadlines forever saying this quarter, that month, or soon. This is one of many examples you'll find on the company's appalling and tantamount to fraudulent practices.

This is coupled with so much development into cash shop items and still they have servers de-syncing and running as horribly as they were in closed beta of 2012. They call this a launched game since sept of last year, it is still a buggy tech demo now just cluttered with pay mechs being glacially nerfed to make way for the next cash pack.

i should've known better. these are people whom have done best with bass pro fishing and some side content for duke nukem forever, before that i think the developers were jarhead games, look up that stuff and it becomes very clear the amount of quality you receive for the amount of spin they're prepared to do for founders deals.

Basically they threw a lot of hype for a 30 year old fan base and have done wrong by them and their own marketing spin for years with gross neglect and incompetence from the top down. The names Bryan Ekman, Russ Bullock, Kelly Zmak and Paul Inouye have now become synonymous with abusing a great IP of Mechwarrior and giving the gaming industry a bad name. I will never play online material again after been burned by the practices of these people. They?re ruining industry potential being sharks preying on unsuspecting gamers, just like I was.

that is how they've treated they're flagship game and it's customerbase and i'm not even going to go through the changes to stated features and multiple bannings they've done to censor the people they've hard done. even now MR ekman had to start a second thread on AUTE because he didn't like the people telling him they're worried about MWO and what he's doing with the latest money pack finances. he even posted loaded questions to use as suitable examples.

i make no pretense i was a person who brought into what was advertised and PGI's failings have annoyed me enough to post about it. it still stands that if PGI were good none of this would've happened but they are awfull buiness people and have ruined a great game and are now giving the industry a bad name.

do not give these people money, they'll only waste it.

 

[Saulkar]

So after months of claiming that their production has been slowed by an inability to find staff to work on Mechwarrior: Online, a game which many features remain unimplemented, broken or horribly buggy, they were able to find the 'talent' to begin production on a whole new title...

http://auniversetoexplore.com/

(Pass code is "I AM HUMAN")

Enjoy.

Hey, Immitem here, how's it going? Glad you took the time to create this thread. Better make the news heard and maybe, just maybe, someone like Jim Sterling will take a moment to soapbox about it. I wonder if Heffay will show up...

P.S. Did you get into the "You know what Alpha"?

 

[Brute4]

So after months of claiming that their production has been slowed by an inability to find staff to work on Mechwarrior: Online, a game which many features remain unimplemented, broken or horribly buggy, they were able to find the 'talent' to begin production on a whole new title...

http://auniversetoexplore.com/

(Pass code is "I AM HUMAN")

Enjoy.

Hi all and Thanks to Roadbeer for creating this thread and trying to get the word out. And before anyone starts thinking of quoting "oh, look there's another new "nobody" who just created an account to come here and start spreading lies about PGI aka "PIGGY" and their business policies" consider this:

That "nobody" went to enough trouble to find some means to try and get their "digital word" out, for other "nobodies" to be able to read and form an opinion on said company, that would otherwise could care less about what their policies are; that alone should signify the level of "charlatan's play" by those individuals considering that the world is a big enough place and the Interntz an even bigger one, to be able to get away with anything.

The list is too long to quote and enybody willing to dig a bit into it and spend a day (i dont know if it'll be enough) to dig further into their "game development enterprizes" could google up PGI, Jarhead games, Rabithole interactive.

As far as their latest "venture" is concerned, the bitter taste in the mouths of their current customer base that supported them the last couple of years in the development of their so-called "immensely successful title" Mechwarrior Online can not be hidden even in their VERY heavily moderated forums on the subject. Just as a reference;
http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/170184-auniversetoexplore-part-deux/page__pid__3697197__st__180#entry3697197

The aforementioned customer base, mainly consisted and consists of people, loyal fans of a much beloved IP for decades that were "literally" hungry for a new game to come out, that ignored all past history of PGI taking up the IP and dove right into it. In the end they not only exploited that "hunger" and loyalty but possibly tarnished the Battletech IP reputation for many years to come.Those fans, those people have been talking about it everywhere they can, even on other game forums. As a reference;
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/108193/mwo-a-game-discussion/p254
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/174419/a-universe-to-explore#latest

The apparent question though is; was it our fault for allowing to be scammed? probably yes to a point; However, when the glass is filled and starts pouring out, some things that are to be said, should be said.

Furthermore, what should be the main focus of interest here, is that, the crowdfunding model of development in the gaming and software industry that flourished in recent years and has presented an amazing opportunity for developers and programmers to come out and try to respectfully work out of the boundaries of bigger corps controlling the industry, and possibly present some quality products to the public, is being constantly exploited to the worst possible point by such companies, possibly leading to the extinction of that business model, which would be sad to say the least.

Concluding, this poster would like to at least caution everyone even remotely thinking to approach their future products and promises. And as for the "white defenders"; keep up the good work, maybe you'll get another gold "goodie" in your accounts.

Edit: spelling

 

[MausGMR]

100% PGI confirmed for shitter. MWO F2p shovelware. Great example of how to destroy loved IP's and alienate your customer base. People have already written novels on this topic, it'd be great to see it talked about by some actual industry professionals as well as all the disenfranchised customers.

I used to love Battletech. PGI literally killed the franchise for me, and my clan.

Oh and they killed Mechwarrior Living Legends as well, just to add some more meat to the above. Some will say this isn't the case, but they weren't staff, so what the fuck do they know.

Peace.

 

[Sandpit]

Their new ToS now makes it a bannable offense ot post anything negative on a 3rd party website. Please expose this company Jim

 

[Punkass]

Their new ToS now makes it a bannable offense ot post anything negative on a 3rd party website. Please expose this company Jim

Sauce
http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/170261-moving-forward-a-discussion-on-moderation/