Friday, July 26, 2013

HEY KID I'M A CONSUMER

I guess the game can't "die" if it wasn't ever really alive to start with.
...stop all the grab dealin'!

Six years later, that video still doesn't make any sense to me. That said, there's something else that doesn't make sense to me and that's what I feel like I need to talk about today - namely, the handling of MechWarrior Online and the player base that's apparently just slightly more incompetent than the game's management. 

Anyone who's followed this blog since I created it about a year ago should know by now that I love BattleTech. It's by far one of my favorite IPs, and I still have great memories of playing the various games (video and tabletop) all through middle school and high school. The circle of friends I made through it was the closest to a real social life I've ever had, which I'm sure reflects poorly on me to a certain extent but nonetheless should make it clear as to why I hate seeing the property go through hard times. 

MechWarrior Online is thus a very strange beast. On one hand, the game has some of the best core gameplay the franchise has ever seen. The aiming system helps make it feel like you're piloting a giant walking tank with limbs rather than a fighter jet with legs, and the integration of proper BattleTech elements like equipment critical slots in the MechBay and the risk of ammunition cooking off in destroyed parts of your 'Mech that will gut you from the inside out bring back a certain level of depth that was missing from MechWarrior 4, even if certain elements (most notably active/passive sensors) are missing in action. The problem is that instead of adding those features, the developer, Piranha Games Interactive (PGI) seems dead-set on removing things that increase player immersion, all while adding elements that break the game in various ways and asking for more money while they do it.