But GMan, what’s wrong with the website?
WHAT THE FUCK AIN’T
Disclaimer: half of this is from chit-chat with other people in SJR and maybe Jager’s stream I don’t remember the specifics. So thanks for letting me steal you fucks’ ideas.
Now let’s take a look at their website…the first thing a new player sees is the landing pad. Who the fuck is that chick, and why is she there. Also, why is the video still the open beta trailer. Sure it’s cool, but I think that needs some updating…like, Clans maybe? Maybe NGNG can whip something up, idk. But at least re-title it, yaknow?
Front Page
Then you get to the main site, and the first thing you see is “pre-order urbanmechs now!”. Then a thing about the 15-year anniversary which isn’t actually giving anything away like most games, but just offers extra shit to people that buy stuff. Then a thing about CW which is cool! And then a thing to buy more mechs – the clan reinforcements. Then the CW Beta announcement – cool – and then the resistance pack ad. Ok. And then Clans Wave II. So of the 7 things in the slider (that’s what the thingy is called), 5 of them ask you to buy something and the other 2 are about CW.
From here on out, we’ll call “buy our shit” things “bad content”, and “look at how cool this game is” things “good content”. So for the slider, MWO is 2 points for good, 5 points for bad. Not looking great.
Now let’s compare this to World of Tanks, which is PGI’s admitted inspiration for basically their financial system thingy. First thing on their slider is an in-game special event and sale. Second thing is a sale. Third thing is another in-game special event and sale. Fourth thing is a special event game mode. Fifth thing is an awesome brand-new feature. Sixth thing is a thing to encourage people to invite friends to play the game. And that’s it.
So World of Tanks is currently standing at 5 good and 0 bad (sales aren’t really bad cuz they are generally well-liked by everyone, but i’m not counting them as “good” cuz they still reek of “buy our shit”, so we’ll ignore them when tallying scores).
As for the rest of the front page, the WoT site is much of the same exact stuff but with extra posts about tournaments and the community and history (aka lore). And on MWO, it’s previews of upcoming things to buy, an in-game event, some sales, patch notes, and other stuff.
So for the rest of the MWO’s front page, we’ve got 5 out of 6 more “good” items, including patch stuff and the Primary Objective II thing (and ignoring repeats). And WoT’s front page has 8 out of 8 (this is all ignoring repeats from the sliders, as well as ignoring sales).
So MWO’s most obvious front-page content is almost all asking people to give them money, and the rest of their front page has decent content (and several repeats of the most obvious content…for example, the 15 year anniversary rewards thing shows up 3 times on the front page…). WoT’s most obvious front-page content is all about making their playerbase excited about their game, with no posts selling stuff except for sales announcements, and only one thing is just about a sale.
For anyone counting, MWO is at 7 good and 6 bad, and WoT is at 13 good and 0 bad. And they’ve both got a couple of things about sales.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that WoT is doing it better. They understand that making people more excited about logging in is a great way to get them to spend money, and they don’t need to just beg for it. So that’s the front page done with. Now how does the rest of the website treat its users, particularly the new ones…
Game
A lot of the shit on the main “game” page is seriously out of date. For example, “the current year 2014 equates to 3051” and “we are on the brink of the upcoming Clan invasion and utilizing the latest in technology available in the 3049”. So it’s out of date and self-contradicts. The rest of the page just gives a basic introduction to MechWarrior stuff.
The next sub-page is the Training Grounds, which is actually pretty decent if a bit outdated (most notable are the videos using the original mechlab UI).
The next sub-page is Battlemechs, which starts out with a non-comprehensive listing of hero mechs (missing the Battlemaster and Blackjack heroes, and that was just what i noticed at a glance). Plus, clicking on the links gives you no information about the mechs. Site needs its own integrated encyclopedia imo (like the one WoT has). This page is also missing any mention of clans, as well as the Vindicator and King Crab.
Next up is Factions, which gives us a nice bit of lore (I’m not knowledgeable enough about BT lore to do serious fact-checking), but the Clans info is sort of hidden…no serious problems here though.
Then we’ve got Maps…doesn’t include any of the CW maps for one thing. Nor Mining Collective or Viridian Bog.
And then Patch Notes, which has the most recent patch. I would like to see a full list of previous patches, but this is good enough I suppose.
Then the last section is “download now” which is…yeah. NICE JOB.
Media
Pleasantly surprised that this has been kept updated. Would like to see a desktop backgrounds section because they released a bunch of those back in the day but they’re bloody hard to find.
Skipping Forums because there’s not much to say about that…
Community
AKA the NGNG corner :P. But no it’s not huge and I wish that this was a larger section because the community IS what the game relies on, but there are some nice links here (MISSING ONE PARTICULAR WEBSITE THOUGH WHICH IS A HUGE OVERLOOK IN MY OPINION BUT I’M NOT MAD OR ANYTHING NO). I mean seriously, look at the World of Tanks Community section. Hint: there’s a drop down for finding a group to play with, find 3rd party software, and all sorts of other crap.
And then the support thing…it’s clearly supposed to be an expansive section with its own knowledgebase (http://mwomercs.com/support/kb, and look at all of the links at the bottom listed under support), but that’s up to them.
Seriously though, whoever’s job it is to take care of the website (do they have a webmaster?) or whoever is telling them what to put up, I think you should take care of a few things – including drawing “inspiration” from the WoT site (they’ve got all sorts of shit besides what we’ve gone over in addition). The website is your entire presence on the internet, and it’s where new players come through.
Anyways, rant over. Build of the week.
This one’s onamotopeoaeiuctic. Onomatopoetic. There it is. Anyways. Shit’s sick. Crazy DPS for a 55-tonner and just amazing in a brawl. XL engine holds you back, but it just spits out death and destruction and all sorts of shit. It’s like…if the GRF-3M is a scalpel, this is a chainsaw.
Pros:
- Great DPS, good DPS, pretty nice DPS.
- AC10 can poke sorta cuz it’s high-mounted.
Cons:
- Spread ain’t great
- A lot of facetime due to super low cooldown
- Not the fastest brawler
All in all, it’s pretty fuckin’ badass. Can also be run with an LBX.
glhf
-G