ERMERGERD! Project Pheonix

[zongoose]

What has been seen cannot be unseen!

http://mwomercs.com/phoenix

Unseen mechs for all the good girls and boys along with mechbays, cbill boosts, faction point boosts, colours, camos etc. For $80 you get 4 mechs with bonuses and 8 more standard mechs, all come with mech bays. You also get some camo, colours, cockpit items and 120days of premium time.

[devilcrayon]

Yeh. My vision got all blurry and next thing I knew there was a receipt in my inbox for the Overlord package.

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/124078 ... questions/

[Fox Parker]

I did some calculations on what the $80 package gives. Had to make some assumptions on MC cost of the Phoenix and 'standard' 'Mechs based on what we already have. But even given that we can't be sure of the final price, we're looking at between $180 to $210 worth of stuff for $80. I accounted for each 'Mech given, all the free bays given, the premium time based on existing premium time pricing, and the medallions based on the existing pricing.

[Molossian Dog]

I still think it is a scam.

20 bucks for pixels i.e. game content (one chassis!) is outrageuous. In fact I consider it highway robbery. Even the 80 buck deal is usury.

The worst is that emotional attachment to Mechs 20 years old -still- tempts me to willingly let them scam me. But I won´t. They can well go and boink themselves.

And if this loyality bonus is more or less neccessary to have any impact on community warfare, I will quit this game. I won´t accept a two class player community separated by how much money you throw at the company.

And we do not even know how community warfare is going to play out, so you could well buy something for a future development you might not like when it comes.

My personal summary for this "opportunity": Boink you PGI!

[DemonRaziel]

And here I thought I was the only one who managed to resist the urge Wise be thy words, Konsti.

[Molossian Dog]

You still pay lots of money and for what? Data.

The cost simply stand in no relation to what you get.

Boink you and boink you again PGI for exploiting things that I love.

And I -love- the TBolt! Its smexy clunkiness its physically impossible LRM drum, with no apparent need for ammunition feeds, the taped-on large laser, the useless Machine Guns whose ammo you always dumped on turn 1 in fear of explosion and finally its weird off-set trash-bucket cockpit! Stomp, stomp, stomp!

Damn you to hell for using this against me.

[cyberstrabadi]

The "early bird" is due to 25 jully.
If and i say if they give me something rock solid by then i might consider the purchase.

[Fox Parker]

A few things to remember:
1: Each of those 'Mechs will have a standard non-Hero variant that you will be able to acquire later after initial release.
2: That data that has no value? Do you realize the time it takes to create a high detailed model along with the 'textures' that go with it? I do, I've done a bit of that in the past. Each model must first be created, then it must be given a texture or "paint". This is not a half day, or even single day prospect.

These days a "texture" isn't just a single image file with the painted details. It is a set of multiple image files. Some more difficult to create than others. Some can be generated based on the model, but often then need to be tweaked.
That concept artist is being paid to produce the concept art, then a 3d modeler is paid to create the model. Then an animator is paid to animate it (trust me, not all modelers are good animators, and not all animators are good modelers). Then either he or a texture artist creates the "texture" which these days usually consists of 3 to 5 "maps". Examples: diffuse map (the "texture"), normal map (allows the game to render more detail with fewer polygons), alpha map (transparency map of parts of the texture), specular map (more or less shininess map). And those are just the ones I'm remembering off the top of my head. CryEngine 3 may be using more than that.

Those people doing the work have families to feed, and must be paid for their work. A company can't afford to pay employees with no income coming in. Yes, PGI made a lot of money on the Founders program. It was around $5 million USD, verifiable through a press release. And yeah we all know people buy hero 'Mechs, cockpit items, camo, and colors. But you have to consider all of the factors. It costs money for the bandwidth the servers are on. It costs money for the electricity that runs the servers. It costs money to pay IT staff to keep the servers going. It costs money to maintain the website and keep it secure. It costs money to have programmers work on the game code and produce a patch. It costs money to have someone produce new content in the game.

I've done the research into the costs of running a game development studio because I tried starting one back in 2000-2001 myself. $5 million dollars in the middle of Closed Beta can't sustain the company indefinitely. In fact, the only way it would last for keeping the servers running and patches coming is if they were only fixing bugs and keeping the servers from going down.

Do I want to see Pay to Win? No, they can make money without creating a two tiered player base where one pays more money and gets further. They've been walking that line fairly well and when they've stumbled over it, the community has convinced them to pull back. See the original Cool Shot design compared to what we have now.

Do I think the non-discounted prices are higher than they could be? Maybe. This will be an always fluctuating assessment as every art asset doesn't take the same amount of time to produce.

Do I think the price on the Phoenix packages is too high? I can't talk about the first three packages because I haven't done the math to compare. But the $80 package comes out to between $180 and $210 worth of content based on existing prices we have for similar (hero mechs, MC for regular mechs) or exactly the same content (mech bays, medallions, premium time). The 120 days of premium time for the pre-order alone would cost a little under $42 worth of MC. The 'Mech bays? roughly $15. That leaves $23. If you pretend that the medallions are then free, and the 8 standard variants are bought with Cbills that breaks each Phoenix 'Mech's cost in the package down to $5.75.

I'm not trying to convince anyone to spend money on the game. It is a Free to Play model which allows for people to play without ever paying a single penny. All I am asking for is that you consider the time put into creating the 'Mechs, and the costs of running a company with always-on servers before saying this data has no value. If they didn't pay their artists to create the content, they wouldn't have artists to do it. I tried finding volunteer artists to help jump start my company. Even with promises of partnerships in the company, or royalty based pay, none of them would work without a weekly salary or upfront pay.

[Molossian Dog]

A few things to remember:
1: Each of those 'Mechs will have a standard non-Hero variant that you will be able to acquire later after initial release....

If that would have been the case, I would already play another game.

A few things to remember:
...
2: That data that has no value?...

Nobody said that data has no value. What I said is that 5,75 per Mech is a terrible cost-benefit ratio. At the end of the day you got yourself an ephemeral thing. It is no book, hardcopy game or even PDF you get to use and keep forever. Who knows what will happen to this game in 5 years.
I will just take your numbers, because I bet you have researched them thouroughly.

I realize it is lots of work. Work costs money. All true.

But I have sincere doubts that the company´s calculation depends on a good Reseen-sale to make it into the plus this year. And I do not believe for a moment that they are mathematically unable to offer it for 2 bucks as well and still make money.
You can get other Mechs for free after all. If that business concept would not pay off we wouldn´t have this game.

I understand their thinking. They have a sort of monopoly. But I am apalled that the excitement some grognards have for old stand-bys of the BT franchise is so impertinently milked for all it is worth.
I am even more indignated it works.

-------------------------

On the matter of a two class playerbase we are completely in agreement.

I am also not advocating to throw in the sponge. Be deliberate in what money you pay and what you get. If you just want to support the game, everything is allright. Better you buy Mechs than totally useless cockpti items. But if you consider yourself a customer and want something for your money you better consider using your C-Bills and hope you will not be made second class player in the future.

Just as you say:

... They've been walking that line fairly well and when they've stumbled over it, the community has convinced them to pull back. See the original Cool Shot design compared to what we have now....

It would behoove them well to do that, because customers that feel fleeced won´t come back. And this sale is frightingly close to this line, I think you will admit, even if we might disagree on if they have crossed it.
The same applies to premium time and MC bought Mechs in general.

And we both know they get close to this line not by accident or because they must or face ruin, but because they can.

[Tomman]

@devil....

DAMN YOU!!!!! DAMN YOU!!!! DAMN YOU!!!!!



There got that out of my system.... LOL.

To be truthful I am jealous Devil, but IF everything goes well I will also be buying the overlord pack in august, otherwise, well, I will have to console myself with the $60 pack. But my wife did say I can buy one of the two, I just have to wait till August so I lose the 30 days of early bird premium time but still get the rest of the goodies!