This post will talk about the game avalable for the 9 months prior to the split. If the game you are playing is AirMech Strike, then this references an old version.
I had never imagined AirMech as a F2P game way back when it was just an idea and we hadn't started creating it. Take one part Herzog Zwei, add 20 years of game mechanics evolution, toss in a bit of C&C Red Alert and Advance Wars, and a big dose of WH40K miniatures aesthetic and we're done--right?
As I touched on in Part 1, F2P didn't really exist on PC back when we started. I hated F2P on mobile, and felt that there was probably some formula we could tap into that would work well for an indie dev of our size. After all, we knew we could make a game, so even Kickstarter seemed like a strange approch--why not just put the game in player's hands and let them support us if they like what they see?
While we knew nothing about F2P when we started, we quickly learned. Having 5% of your players pay something was normal it turns out--and even part of the "game" can be not paying. This doesn't mean the players are being unsupportive or anything, but it's a tricky chicken and egg thing.
We struggled for years trying to balance the line between rewarding the paying players with lots of excellent bonuses and keeping the game fair for free players. It was a problem I didn't expect--we wanted all players who gave even a small amount to be rewarded handsomely, so we started the VIP system. Make a purchase, become Silver VIP for life, simple. XP, currency bonuses, exclusive cosmetics, we experimented with lots of things but the better we made VIP (even if it was cheap) the more we got called "pay to win". This was very frustrating to say the least.
It seemed no matter what changes we made, or how many features we added to the game, revenue seemed incredibly consistent. Retention was never great, but steady. The playerbase wouldn't grow much--or shrink. It was strange. We always thought "this is the feature players have been asking for, this will make the game take off". But it might be we were building the game for the already dedicated players, which did make the game better, but did nothing to bring in new players or help them early on. And again, most of these features benefited the paying users, furthering the divide.
Around 2 years ago, we were experimenting in VR. This got us a lot of attention, and Oculus in particular was very interested in us doing a full game in the AirMech universe for them. We were very interested in VR, but saw designing the game for motion controllers to be too much at the time. With Rift launching with a gamepad it was perfect--we knew we could add motion controller support later on.
We focused the core team on AirMech Command (the VR version) but also wanted to improve F2P AirMech. So we brought in some outside help from someone who worked in F2P games. He had some quite different ideas on what types of content to give players for what to play (Warzone, Tutorial Campaign) and a plan for how to make it. It was hard for me to give up creative control of AirMech as it was my baby, but for financial and business reasons I felt it was the right decision. After all, after many attempts I was never able to launch AirMech into a huge success, so letting someone new take a shot seemed sensible.
I take full responsibility for what AirMech would become. While it was not my plan, I did approve of it, because it was at least something "different". I don't think the result is a game that I would play, but Carbon was in the position where we were very focused on VR and not able to spend time to "fix" the game. VR, even with its tiny userbase, was already generating more revenue than the F2P game, so we relucantly had to keep almost all of the team focused on our VR project(s).
With the release of AirMech Command on Steam this spring, it freed up the team to come back to AirMech properly. I am again leading development, and having come back from a long break I can see a giant amount of "stuff" we have in this game--but it's spread all over into a mess.
At the root is a conflict between PvP and PvE style play. One wants to be fair and competitive, the other wants progression and a variety of challenges. We have always had battles between the two groups of players over this, resulting in neither group being satisfied. I remind myself that even Blizzard gave up on PvP for Diablo 3 probably due to this very reason.
The solution is that AirMech should really be two games: a PvP focused one, and an RPG/PvE focused one. Instead of two new games however, the current version of AirMech will be relaunched as AirMech Strike--think of it as AirMech 2.0. It will remain F2P, and be entirely PvP focused. You'll still be able to do coop practice against AI and custom games, but all the campaign and coop special missions are being moved too...
A brand new AirMech game: AirMech Wastelands. I'll need a whole post to go into detail about that because there are many radical changes from rebooting AirMech into a semi-open world game with RPG-style power and progression curves.
It's important to note that any player who is Silver VIP before the split will be gifted AirMech Wastelands on Steam. Originally it was meant for just owners of Prime to get the story/campaign, but we want to bring over anyone who has supported us financially on any level in the past. There will be benefits over and above for Prime owners, don't worry.
Once again, I apologize for the current state of the game. It pains me to see it this way, and you can see for yourself on the recent Steam reviews that the players feel the same way. I am very excited to be close to releasing Strike, and shortly after that we will leave Early Access. Wastelands is coming soon after as a new Steam game, not as AirMech Strike DLC.
Worth noting is that the accounts for Strike and Wastelands will be linked. There will be some content only available in one game or the other, in some really interesting ways. Longtime players will find themselves quite happy with the benefits of what they have collected ahead of this split.
Keep an eye out for the next update where I detail out what will be in Strike and what will be in Wastelands.