With a bit of luck and a good wind, the forums should be back up by tomorrow (Jan17). And it really IS nothing more nefarious than a forum upgrade. It's been a while since we performed one; takes a while to install all those patches and new software!

T-

Wizkids have made mistakes and one big mistake they have made is listening to the community a little too much. They gave people what they thought they wanted from a straw poll but they never really weighted the results by $ commitments.

You see if 80% of your player base buy 20% of the product and the remaining 20% buy the rest then you're looking at a situation where WK really shouldn't listen to the "majority" and should instead listen to the people who are essentially supporting the product. How many times did you hear people say they would spend more if such-and-such happened? And then never hear from them again even though such-and-such did, indeed, happen?

The fundamental problem is that this is a niche poduct and we, as a community, have never quite agreed on what we wanted out of it.

As a company, WK need to make money. To invest time and effort on this game (as opposed to other projects) requires that the opportunity cost (that is the money they are losing due to putting less time into other projects) is paid back by this one. In 2007 that isn't going to happen because the game is basically on cruise control right now and apart from a few Solaris VII-oriented events will be for some time. So WK staffers could spend time massaging player egos (which as you have seen lasts 3 weeks tops before you have to do it all over again) or else they can spend time developing and playtesting the Solaris VII game and the successor to MW.

What would you prefer?

A badly playtested and hastily completed game but at least they spent a lot of time preaching spin to us...?

Or

A more complete game that has been more extensively tested at the expense of hearing less from them...?

D503 is right, by the way. In the UK the game is virtually dead. Those of us still around are waiting for the second-coming and no amount of spin or communications is going to make a blind bit of difference until there is a product to sell and we find out just how it is received by the gaming world at large... (and what its audience actually is)

still they do support venues in getting new players, january and february warcolleges, and even added demo kits. these are even the 1st demo kits we ever got for MW. next march we have a convention by that time im sure there will be some WC leftovers and am gonna try to get some interest in the game, though doesnt help if there isnt much news to tell em what is yet to come.

we re pretty stuck with 6 regular players and a few who took some interest (atleast what i got from Nanhold)

i take the reason we dont hear much more of a sign that they re stacked with work in not just MW. but have other projects aswell and indeed taking their time to release something solid. id rather wait 6 months to have a fun game that lasts then a brief attempt that gets boring after playing 4 times.

i do think Solaris offers lots of extras and interactivity in a way, perhaps even a bit of roleplaying. we already have 2 maps who could be used as arenas (warcollege map and the one from phantom war) perhaps we ll see more of those.

all we can do is wait and see what happens bet we ll see something before april.

Personally, I think that WizKids has an opportunity to show that they have not abandoned Mechwarrior to the wind.

Conventions are a perfect place to get the word out, as well as generate interest. Now, of course, conventions are few and far between early in the year, but if WizKids plays it smart, they could do a lot of PR repair simply by making plans to gather some of their higher level Battlemasters and Support Staff for Mechwarrior, send them out to conventions, even some of the not-so-big ones and run special events with prize support. The idea isn't that "new" prizes be given away, but even some of the standard stuff would generate interest and we'd have the feeling that Mechwarrior isn't just stagnating.

Personally, I don't have ALL the current prizes, LE pieces, and "goodies" so such an event would be of interest. It doesn't have to be a Grand Champion-style tournament, with weird scenarios, but simply straight-up 600 / 750 point events where you bring your A-game. Isn't that what we really enjoy?

Last year saw confusion about Mechwarrior in the gaming community with regards to conventions. HeroClix got BIG support, while Mechwarrior sometimes got left out in the cold. Take DragonCon for example...at first, WK didn't even plan on going to it, but they did finally concede that DragonCon was a good convention to go to. Conventions get the word out to people that the game is still ongoing, even if they don't have new information to give us. The fact that they're THERE would be a positive sign.

Troy

Heh. We've helped our venue sell out of several cases of Mechwarrior via sealed, draft and CTA events. I imagine there would be a lot of outraged customers at our venue if WK dropped MW like a hot rock. The idea behind the open letter proposal and subsequent form letter was to yank those nay-sayers out of the emo-dumps they're wallowing in, stand them up straight and make them DO SOMETHING other than wench. I imagine they purchase large amounts of boosters themselves, but when their supply of styrene crack dries up, they get a little twitchy.

Then there are those of us that savor the product as others would enjoy a fine wine or brandy. Rather than use a cheese army until it collapses, we play different armies to see how they work, to watch them succeed or crumble and learning their overall strengths and weaknesses. The end result is a greater appreciation for the game and a more rewarding experience.

Tony, you've helped my brother Norcross immensely with Prize Support issues, so I have absolutely no reason to doubt your word. I'm also glad to see someone from WK chime in on these discussions so they don't get too out of hand. All too often people believe that an absence of admission is proof of guilt, and WK is suddenly this uncaring corporation without ever having the chance to speak for themselves.

I have no doubt this game will continue well into the next year and even beyond; the interest is far too high to simply toss it aside. People keep mentioning this failed game or that failed game, but what they fail to realize is that those games did not have the HUGE fan base that Mechwarrior has. And in the end I firmly believe that is what will keep the game alive. Keep up the good work, mate. You guys keep making them, we'll keep buying and enjoying them!

- Schmitty

Personally, I think WK has so many things to fix with MW, they are not sure where to start.
There are the quality issues that seem to keep popping up with the recent releases.

There is, in my opinion, a great need to re-write the rule book to make the rules clearer. I know the overall design for the game was to take the 100s of pages of CBT rules and make MW into a game that required a lot less reading to learn how to play. Unfortunately, seeing the 100s of threads with rules clarifications, plus the FAQ and Sticky rules threads, it seems obvious that this model is not entirely successful.

I think they need to figure out what style of booster works best. Personally, although I think the Action Packs are a good addition to blind boosters, I do not think APs are a good replacement for blind boosters. I also think the Wolf Strike booster format is a bust also. It gives you more Mechs for your dollar but fewer support (tanks/infantry) for the dollar. It works great for those that play Mech-only armies, but those that play rounded armiess with Mechs and support have a harder time getting 3-5 matching tanks/infantry to make a formation. Add to that the fact that they added more of each type of inf/tank (6 vs 4 in the previous blind booster), and you can see that WK made it expedentially harder to attain what you need.
But, at least, with the blind booster, you had people buying them in the hopes of getting what they needed. With the Action Pack, theres no more guesswork. You know what you're getting. Great if you like all the units in the pack. Terrible if you dont. If you don't find any of them useful for your play style, the decision is easy. Dont buy it at all. It becomes much worse of a decision when you like 1 or 2 units in the pack but dont like the rest. Now you know you are purchasing units you dont want. You can only hope there are people buying those units on eBay or you are screwed. And if those 1-2 units are non-unique and you want more than one, then you have to buy even more unwanted pieces. At least with the blind boosters, you might be buying unwanted pieces, but you didnt know until you opened it.

Disregard statement above regrading distribution of infantry and tanks in WS. I did not buy that many boosters to notices that there are still only 4 types of each model inf and tanks. Only the Mechs went to a 6 types per model format.

However, using AoD as a comparison to WS, AoD had 32 total different infantry and you received 96 infantry per case, so with even distribution, you would receive 3 per type. With WS, there are 24 total different infantry and you receive 48 per case. That comes out to 2 per type.

I've avoided posting to this thread for a while, but I figure it's about time to add my virtual two cents.

I think that MW succeeds in spite, rather than because of, WK's efforts.

In my opinion, they've done just about everything they could to mismanage the product line right from the very start. Not deliberately, but just by simple incompetence, eliteism and hubris.

Even before MW released, it already had a large and devoted potential following: the Battletech player base. Rather than capitalize on that group of gamers to their advantage, WK almost went out of its way to insult and belittle them. Goof number one.

Then the first several releases of the game were filled with industrial mechs (which just about anyone with half a brain could have told you wouldn't play well anywhere, much less in Peoria), and precious few sculpts of the classic mechs that almost anyone (even those who hadn't ever played CBT) was able to identify with. So rather that the skull-faced Atlas and the looming MadCat running about on every game table, we got "exciting" battles between goofy Agromechs and squat Koshis. Not a lot of visual appeal there fellahs...

Once the game was out on the market, it quickly became clear that playtesting hadn't been as thorough as it should have been. Players began suggesting all sorts of changes to "improve" the system. Did WK listen? Not really, beyond occasionally tossing out the odd rude remark at those they percieved as nay-saying critics (as opposed to ardent fans who wanted to help improve the game). Were all the suggestions (or even a majority of them) good? Heck no, but there are ways to thoughtfully and politely respond to such things that don't put down the people who come forward -- and more to the point, there are ways to gracefully admit that some ideas are good ones and worthy of consideration, rather than slamming the proponent with threats of legal sanction and locking down threads on this and other forums.

And once a problem is identified, don't do the knee-jerk reaction thing (how many variants of the artillery rules have we gone through now?) and then have to retract the change, or modify the change, or whatever. Playtesting, playtesting, playtesting! It can't be over emphasized. And more to the point, playtesting doesn't need to be *secret,* in fact I'd argue that it should be (in most cases) open, where the test teams can comment/debate their views and allow other outsiders to provide comment too. Be open to suggestion, don't suppress it -- it doesn't mean you need to accept/adopt every dumb idea every whacko comes up with (and a quick review of some of the threads on this site will quickly reveal how many truly *dumb* ideas there are out there), but at least provide feedback on why you don't think it'll work. And whatever you do, *DON'T* insult anyone who's willing to devote their time to try and help improve the game -- that's a certain way to drive a potential customer away.

Again, if WK wants to retain and encourage others to join this hobby, they need to improve their communications skills with their customers (and stop behaving like a bunch of tempermental artists). Okay, so WK's decided that MW needs to take an operational pause, to reset things before moving forward again -- that's fine. We can accomodate it. But it'll go easier and you'll have fewer people getting nervous and quitting the game if you keep everyone informed about what's going on, when to expect developments. Silence breeds fear, suspicion, and worst of all rumor and conjecture. Three weeks may seem like a short interval between press releases, but most of the people who play games like MW go to the game store every week. If there's nothing new to chat about during that interval, they're going to start looking at other products. And with limited discretionary "entertainment" money to throw around, that means that MW doesn't get those bucks -- more importantly, once the player gets "into" a new product line, it's easier for him/her to simply lose interest in MW and not return. You *need* to keep MW in the forefront of the player's minds -- a simple teaser, or even "hey guys, things are going well and we're still planning on releasing the next set in two months" is all that's needed. Instead, what we typically get from WK is silence. Bad practice.

Send letters to WK/Topps? Been done before (around the release of AoD); didn't have any appreciable impact that I was able to see. Not a bad idea, but not likely to have much impact.

Bring in new players, a great recruitment drive? Doing it. But without new info/teasers to keep them excited, it's going to be difficult to retain them.

More prize support? Personally, while I absolutely love getting stuff for "free," I think the competitive nature of prizes tends to do more to drive new players away than it does to keep them coming back. After constantly getting spanked by the Mr.Suitcase Uber-players, the newbies just get frustrated and give up. Participation prizes is, I think, the way to go. And how freakin' expensive is handing out a card to everyone as compared to a couple mechs to just the (always the same guys) winners of a tourney? It ain't cost holding 'em back...

It's a great game, and the basics of it keep me involved, despite WK's incompetence in managing the line. It could be huge (well, okay, maybe not huge but certainly bigger) if things were handled better.

Well put, Clown. The only thing I can add is that, although there are many "Mr.Suitcase Uber-players" at any venue I have played at, they are also always the first to offer up access to their pieces for newbies to battle with if they need them. Thats how I got started. I would make up and army usinf the unit list here and at WK, then email my local Uber-player and ask him if I could borrow x, y, and z units for the tournament. They were more than willing to do so. I can only suggest that, instead of getting intimidated by a seasoned player's huge supply of units, just ask. You might be suprised.

Clown and Weinster666 are on the money here.

But the quote that best sums up my attitude toward MW is this:
I won't really care if the game dies [WK stops supporting]; I will still play it with my friends and create our own games and probably our own house rules if the game loses WK support. Remember this is a GAME. This isn't your life or family, just a game. Enjoy it.

If I have a product like MW in the market I would never make an annoucement like this one, IF they had a real intention to continue with the game the changes had to be decided before WS release in order to have something concrete to be presented.

Solaris VII was presented as "an idea we just had yesterday". If they really had, it it was the moment to show it

After 5 years would be no suprise to finish the game but WK has the ability to make the things quite confuse .....

Clown,

One way we got around the Uber-player problem at our venue was to make a rule that players could not use the same army build repeatedly. Of course, we've also grown into a group of friends who respect each other enough NOT to play the Uber-pieces repeatedly. From time to time we'll whip out the DI Schmitt Dragons Fury Version with a tank drop, but the next week we'll try something different. We've found that we have a better game with variety making each scenario competitive by trying to win via our strategic abilities, not our Uber-pieces.

Troy

My prediction is, well an idea my freinds and I have been tossing around for a while. With only 2 slots (one usually for a pilot and one for gear), the mechs really arent that customizable in and of themselves. This requires a lot more miniatures, each with slight derivations between each other. This also is detrimental to the idea of Solaris 1-on-1 battles as certain combinations are vastly superior to others in each weight class.

The great thing about CBT or the MechWarrior4 video game is how customizable the Mechs are. You had certain spots and you could fit all types of gear in there. So, my prediction:

More generalized Mech platforms (thus less miniatures for WK to make) but with many more slots on them. This will make them much more customizable within any weight class, so making the uber-unit is less likely. Also, this will focus on more styrene for WK , which is cheaper to produce and distribute.

Just my 2c worth.

with friends like wizkids..............you have a great time with the rest of your friends!!!!!