To: @Asros, @AgentVapor, @JZB, @MichaelMayhem, @TheArtofRawr, @PsiLocke, @AgentFenixion
A fellow California based gaming company (Obsidian Entertainment - most popularly known for Fallout: New Vegas) also working on their F2P MMO tank game (Armored Warfare) put out a nice news post/article detailing their own system changes as the game transitions out of open beta and will eventually make it to full release sometime in 2017. Although a different genre. MMO FPS, if you've played War Thunder or World of Tanks, this game is a lot like those 2.
https://aw.my.com/en/forum/showthread.php?86112-Armored-Warfare-Past-Present-and-Future
I get that each company runs things their own way, but I can see some interesting parallels in regards to the community atm here in MH getting a bit sick of announcement of announcements and the now recently revealed delay of said announcements. I post this in hopes that aforementioned Gaz employees I @'ed it to can possibly take a lesson from it in the future.
There was no announcement of an announcement, no teasing of announcements, no delays of announcements. The community knew what information was given to them and potentially what may come in each major patch (0.16, 0.17, 0.18, etc) at least in broad strokes, not everything was going to be detailed or given in bite size increments either. An example, in the next major patch of 0.17, Anti Tank Guided Missiles will be radically be overhauled and can be utilized in many more situations compared to before increasing their effectiveness and changing the game's meta immensely. There can be a number of things and minor system changes within that same patch that they have yet to disclose. But that being said, they still gave pertinent and very important information in regards to large scale changes to the game, and seeing as how this is both a PvP and PvE game - it involves the meta quite a bit as it is a shooter (first and third person). How ATGMs operated currently/before this upcoming patch were somewhat limited and more constrained making them a very high skill mechanism that a tiny portion of the playerbase can actually master.
Pre 0.17 ATGMs required stopping, then waiting about a second to have a lock on time before firing and controlling the missiles in flight.
Post 0.17 the lock on delay will be removed, and some vehicles can even fire ATGMs while moving, which has very interesting ramifications.
Obsidian Entertainment and their publisher for this game in My.com have suffered quite a lot of scrutiny by the community for a number of reasons, so they're not faultless, I play AW less than Marvel Heroes, but for all the game's faults I still enjoy it almost as much as I do this one (to be clear, I like MH more than AW). But I will give them credit that given the situation they find themselves in, especially with a dwindling playerbase in both North American and European regions. They are trying to the best of their ability to be clear and concise with their goals for the game. They reveal what info they can without potentially threatening their job security long before each patch hits a test server to try out. This newspost by AW's senior producer came out of nowhere. But it carries significance due to the fact it too finds itself in the same position MH has, major system changes to shake up the game.
So bottom line, what does this mean for Gaz and Marvel Heroes? Not much, just a lesson to learn. Less announcement of announcements about big changes coming to the game, just stick with announcements of whatever is relevant when it's out. You build up hype and when something unforeseen (ie: announcement of an announcement delay) happens. You're letting the entire community down since you can't even deliver on giving information that was originally promised at a certain time-frame. If you want to build up hype, so be it, but you may want to learn some better timing, or at least set some broader ranges in ETAs. I do think Gaz does need a dedicated staff member to do these announcement thingies in a more dedicated fashion. Right now I figure Asros and AgentVapor are basically the two shouldering the load and sort of took over for Ryolnir since he left, is that their job description now? Probably, but a dedicated PR staff member would ease things and prevent situations like this in the future.