Clan tech usually is better, from omnipods to Clan weapons, which have extended range and better damage. In MWO most people are just using Clan Mechs since they pawn IS mechs most of the time, unless you're really good with an Atlas.
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Battletech |KS| Turn-based tactical mech combat, Harebrained Schemes, Summer 2017
- Thread starter Lime
- Start date
Clan tech usually is better, from omnipods to Clan weapons, which have extended range and better damage. In MWO most people are just using Clan Mechs since they pawn IS mechs most of the time, unless you're really good with an Atlas.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Give me elementals so I can go kill myself by accident with jump jets.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Looking at some nostalgia, I found some images of E3 back in 1998 when Microprose spent a lot of money on the marketing campaign of Mechwarrior 3 (I also remember the game being on many magazine covers back then):
I can't believe it was that prominently featured at E3 at that level.
I can't believe it was that prominently featured at E3 at that level.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Looking at some nostalgia, I found some images of E3 back in 1998 when Microprose spent a lot of money on the marketing campaign of Mechwarrior 3 (I also remember the game being on many magazine covers back then):
I can't believe it was that prominently featured at E3 at that level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjtBgF5SP9U
^Now that I got a Nvidia card, I should fire up Mechwarrior 3. It's been very, very long since last time I played it.
Summary of the podcast interview (credit to Zorba the Hutt from RPGCodex):
The bolded is very sad for me.
Summary of the podcast interview (credit to Zorba the Hutt from RPGCodex):
The bolded is very sad for me.
Looking at some nostalgia, I found some images of E3 back in 1998 when Microprose spent a lot of money on the marketing campaign of Mechwarrior 3 (I also remember the game being on many magazine covers back then):
I can't believe it was that prominently featured at E3 at that level.
Mechwarrior 2 was pretty big iirc. Like it was like THE big pack in with videocards the year it came out. No surprise they pushed the next one hard.
Yeah, I know, MW2 was huge, it's just so crazy that Mechwarrior was once one of the centers of E3. Granted, E3 back then was very different and much smaller than it is now, but nevertheless it's astounding to think that a mech sim was a premier title back then.
You know, it just had its 20 year anniversary back in July.
Too bad it probably won't ever be released on GOG or Steam.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
I forget was it the Mechwarrior games or the Starsiege ones that had the insanely easy cockpit criticals if you used things like autocannons. Man miss stuff like that.
"- HBS have license from Microsoft for this game but no control over older games getting on Steam/GOG"
Huh? I thought PGI had licensed Battletech video games from Microsoft and that HBS got sub-license from PGI...
But perhaps PGI got exclusive "MechWarrior" license from Microsoft, rather than exclusive BT license.
Does anyone have any idea about the legal/rights status of older Battletech/Mechwarrior games? I mean, does MS own them all, or are the rights all over the place (like, wasn't Mechwarrior 2 Activision's game)?
If they're all over the place, that would explain why they're not getting re-releases on digital distribution platforms. Alternatively it is Microsoft's "support" of PC gaming...
EDIT The only thing i'm sure about is that MS owns the rights for (future) electronic Battletech/Mechwarrior games.
Huh? I thought PGI had licensed Battletech video games from Microsoft and that HBS got sub-license from PGI...
But perhaps PGI got exclusive "MechWarrior" license from Microsoft, rather than exclusive BT license.
Does anyone have any idea about the legal/rights status of older Battletech/Mechwarrior games? I mean, does MS own them all, or are the rights all over the place (like, wasn't Mechwarrior 2 Activision's game)?
If they're all over the place, that would explain why they're not getting re-releases on digital distribution platforms. Alternatively it is Microsoft's "support" of PC gaming...
EDIT The only thing i'm sure about is that MS owns the rights for (future) electronic Battletech/Mechwarrior games.
- PGI retains the rigths to future Mechwarrior titles until mid-2018, mayb even mid-2020, thanks to the blessing of Microsoft
- Microsoft is the license holder of any new digital games related to Battletech/Mechwarrior/Mechcommander. Any new stuff needs their explicit approval.
- Activision still has the trademark rights to the MW2 series according to the US Copyright database
- Microsoft has the rights to Mechcommander, Mechcommander 2, Mechwarrior 4, Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, Inner Sphere & Clan Packs. They okay'ed the MTX Mektek release of MW4 Mercenaries for free back in 2010.
- I don't know the status of Mechwarrior 3. Microprose had the rights to those, got bought by Hasbro Interactive, and then FASA was acquired by Microsoft. I don't know if Microsoft then acquired MW3 rights or if they remained with Microprose.
Oh.
That's almost like the legal mess the tabletop Battletech has/had. Except kind of messier.
So basically Activision could have MW2 re-released if they wanted (and if the source code is available, otherwise a re-release is unlikely, i guess?), and MS could re-release their games... if they bothered.
I reckon that these have better chance happening once, if, this HBS game is a success. You know, cash in on success.
Seems like most other older BT/MW games won't ever see the light of day again though.
That's almost like the legal mess the tabletop Battletech has/had. Except kind of messier.
So basically Activision could have MW2 re-released if they wanted (and if the source code is available, otherwise a re-release is unlikely, i guess?), and MS could re-release their games... if they bothered.
I reckon that these have better chance happening once, if, this HBS game is a success. You know, cash in on success.
Seems like most other older BT/MW games won't ever see the light of day again though.
No, Activision is being blocked by something. Interstate '76 and Dark Reign got released, because Activision still had the rights to distribute those. But their games from the same era, like Heavy Gear 1+2, Battlezone and Mechwarrior 2 haven't been released. Battlezone is owned by Rebellion and is getting a remake (!!!), I don't know what's going on with Heavy Gear (licensing probably) and Mechwarrior 2 is nowhere to be found.
I could imagine Activision isn't allowed to sell digital titles of Battletech because of the Microsoft license, I'd guess. If Microsoft wasn't sitting on their asses, MW2 would probably get released.
Just take a look at Mechcommander 1 and 2 - it is freeware, you can download it for free, but Microsoft hasn't even bothered to contact GOG or Steam and distribute it. It wouldn't take more than an e-mail or two, but here we are where Mechcommander gets relegated to the graveyard of freeware titles only hosted on one obscure website far away from everyone's attention.
Again, someone professionally and with a network and capital would need to make an effort into contacting the ones responsible at Microsoft and do a committed effort to get the old games released on GOG/Steam. Like with System Shock 2.
dancrane212
Member
The whole thing is hard to keep track of. From what I understood Piranha Games has the license for MW games on MS platforms like Xbox/Windows and Personae Studios had it for non-MS platforms like Mac and iOS (with certain stipulations). HBS is making Battletech for PC, Mac and Linux though and (from kickstarter messages) doesn't have the console rights that PGI has - no idea how that happened.
Honestly, what HBS should be doing is adding a tier or something that specifically hires one new employee to work out and try to get the old games on GOG and Steam. They seem to be replying to every inquiry about the old games that they don't have the rights, but if they wanted to, they could just get someone to single-handledly work on contacting the relevant people. Jordan and Mitch already know people at Microsoft, it would be much easier to get in touch with the ones responsible for Microsoft's intellectual property.
If they wanted to commemorate the old games, this would be a great way to pay respect to very classic games that had a huge influence on this very audience that are supporting the campaign.
If they wanted to commemorate the old games, this would be a great way to pay respect to very classic games that had a huge influence on this very audience that are supporting the campaign.
Robottiimu2000
Member
I don't think microsoft owns the battletech license, only mechwarrior/mechcommander.
Storyline in periphery! Can this get any better! <3
The fact that a mech-simulator was a big thing at E3 back in the days, does confirm that things really were better back then and not just viewed through my rose-tintend glasses of nostalgia..
Storyline in periphery! Can this get any better! <3
The fact that a mech-simulator was a big thing at E3 back in the days, does confirm that things really were better back then and not just viewed through my rose-tintend glasses of nostalgia..
They own the license to digital releases of the Battletech universe. They acquired that license when they bought FASA Interactive back in 1999.
It was also a different industry with less revenue and less consumers. But I agree that it's incredible that the 90's had big productions of simulation and strategy titles. Golden Age indeed.
dancrane212
Member
MS owns all video game related parts of Battletech/MechWarrior.
More_Badass
Member
So pretty much assured. Campaign has been making around 20k a day. Give it a week and we'll have that expanded campaign
Battletech was originally balanced on two mechanisms: tonnage and heat. Ballistic weapons were relatively cool, but they didn't do much damage unless they were really heavy as well. Energy weapons were powerful and light, but they produced lots of heat, and missile weapons were somewhere in between. While the best weapon in the game was obviously the medium laser in terms of damage/tonnage, it was short ranged and still ran fairly hot, so it couldn't be used as primary armament for anything other than light 'Mechs. There was plenty of reasons to use just about any weapon in the game.
When TRO: 3050 came out, it introduced the Clans and it trivialized heat as a mechanic. Even worse, when it came to Clan weapons, the designers decided to use the existing weapons and apply multipliers to them without too much thought on how balanced they'd end up being. The end result was that there were three Clan weapons which were heads and shoulders outright better than the rest and it made efficient custom designs really boring. Another side effect was that 'Mechs gained a lot more firepower and so a lot of old designs no longer did what they were supposed to. The overall effect isn't too bad if you only played with stock designs, but it could get pretty silly if everyone designed their own 'Mechs.
I'd imagine part of the problem is that a few of them were put out for free via mektek before becoming abandonware.
FrontalMonk
Banned
This was answered above, but also from a lore perspective, when the Clans invaded, they cut a swath across the Inner Sphere, and IS mechs generally speaking got crushed by the Clanners until the Battle of Tukkayid in 3052, where the Com Guards crushed them with superior tactics and Star League era Mechs.
It has to be a licensing issue. Most of the old Battletech stuff has gotten weird in terms of rights, hence why HBS has had to deny some requests to offer X or Y thing as a reward. They don't have the rights to make certain physical goods even though they can make a game about the universe. I'd imagine the books are in a similar but different licensing hell.
To be fair, a lot of this stems from the Inner Sphere being ridiculously under militarized. There are fewer than 1000 'Mech regiments in the entire Inner Sphere. This translates to around 100,000 total Battlemechs for a population of just short of a trillion people. The Clans are more reasonable with about 2000-3000 'Mechs for 75 - 100 million people for the strongest Clans.
I don't think that this is a convincing argument. People prefer ease-of-use where you simply just click a button and download the games and play them. Having the games on a storefront with lots of visibility and promotion and available on stable servers is a million times better than on some freeware link on some obscure website in the dark corners of the Internet. Added to the fact that you have to fiddle around with the iso files when you download the freeware versions, there's simply much less hassle if the games were on GOG or Steam.
Lots of people are willing to fork over money for ease of use and many more will notice the games thank to the platforms, so I don't think it matters much that Microsoft released the Mechcommander games as freeware, or that the now-defunct MTX (Mektek) distribution of Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries is now completely dead and non-existant (unless you pirate).
There's no excuse for Microsoft sitting on their asses on one of the premier IPs of the 90's PC gaming.
Yeah it's really sad that things are so restricted when it comes to the rewards. I really hoped for something like an artbook or figures or a very cool poster(s), like what we saw with the Shadowrun campaigns. Instead this seems much more bare-bones. A cap and a flightjacket just seem kinda tacky for me to wear, unfortunately.
Robottiimu2000
Member
Microsoft were the ones that let Mektek give away several mechwarrior titles. It was legal, there were no iso's. I mean, I want them to be rereleased on gog as well, but I'm just saying that microsoft doesn't seem to care about the Mechwarrior IP's existence enough to sell old titles.
They probably have that the IP sitting in some sort of records library, and the people managing their IPs and brands just have no idea it fuckin' even exists, because they don't give a shit.
And the people that do remember its existence either aren't there, or simply are working on other things.
And there's no easy channel of communication to the people that can make this happen, so the shit just languishes.
Oh well, in the moral grey area of piracy, this is about the lightest shade of grey you can get.
The Battletech/Mechwarrior licenses languish because they're primarily PC-centric games and Microsoft hasn't been interested in making PC-centric games for a while now. It seems that the company on the whole is only interested in hit games and the Battletech stuff is likely to be more modest than that. There is a bit of hope though - there are enough people at Microsoft who love Age of Empires enough to revive it. If this Battletech game sells well, these people may think to do the same.
But it's really just leaving free money off the table, even if it doesn't align with their overarching software strategy.
One can only conclude that not enough people give a shit at that company or even remember to make that happen.
The powers that be just aren't interested in smaller franchises unless there's potential for a lot of sales. I imagine that it took a lot of political capital to even do anything with Age of Empires, and that used to be Microsoft's biggest or second biggest franchise. You can even see the same phenomenon with Xbox: Microsoft is concentrating mostly on larger titles whereas Sony is content with making all sorts of smaller titles as well.
Microsoft (for some reason) pulled the support of the legal release of Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries through Mektek. Whoever is responsible I have no idea - either PGI didn't want people to play it and used their weight to shut the release down, or Mektek didn't want to distribute and be responsible for it, or Microsoft simply went back on their promise. As the Battletech forum boards state in a pinned thread:
Yeah, Microsoft seems to have a big structural and organizational issue when it comes to their games division. One would think that the Xbox division made things incredibly tough for them to operate properly, as if they simply cut off all operations with their PC games division.
That is true for the case of Mechwarrior 2, but Ghost Bear's Legacy and Mercenaries didn't include the Unseen.
Besides, it is very, very basic to edit the .pak files of MW2 to include or exclude certain mechs from game. Tons of new mechs were modded into MW2: Mercs, and the same goes for MW2.
BrokenFiction
Member
< $100K (w/ PayPal) to go until Stage 3! Can't wait to see the stretch goals in that stage.
afternoon delight
Member
BrokenFiction
Member
Update #8: New Digital Add-Ons, Jordans Next Bonus Backer Mission, and Another Peek Behind the Curtain
Also, the next Weekly Backer Mission-- #myBTart
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/battletech/posts/1382653
Also, the next Weekly Backer Mission-- #myBTart
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/webeharebrained/battletech/posts/1382653
Robottiimu2000
Member
*Throws money at the screen!*
That's really cool. I like the fact that the handbooks are relegated to the houses for the game. I might throw $140 after this, but I prefer physical books rather than PDFs.
I imagine the PDFs for the Clan Kickstarter a couple of years from now will include the sourcebooks for the various clans.
I imagine the PDFs for the Clan Kickstarter a couple of years from now will include the sourcebooks for the various clans.
It's too bad that all of these books are long after the events of the actual game. The House Handbooks are supposed to be a replacement for the original sourcebooks, but Harebrained may not have access to them any more. I believe that Catalyst was looking to make a complete collection on PDF a few years ago, and they had to ask a fan to send in his copy of the original SLDF sourcebook.
For those who don't know, the Handbook series is good stuff.
Basically, each handbook details one major house of the Inner Sphere, history, culture, economics, stuff like that. I like all of them quite a bit. Very interesting books.
(And yes, they replace the old housebooks, which can be downloaded from Sarna.net for free without images.)
The Field Manual series has more details about IS militaries circa 3062. Overview, details about units, details about ranks and uniforms, stuff like that.
Technical Readout 3039 is good, has details about most common IS 'mechs before the Clan Invasion. Even if you don't play the tabletop game, you may find it interesting if you like to read about the lore behind the 'mechs.
Basically, each handbook details one major house of the Inner Sphere, history, culture, economics, stuff like that. I like all of them quite a bit. Very interesting books.
(And yes, they replace the old housebooks, which can be downloaded from Sarna.net for free without images.)
The Field Manual series has more details about IS militaries circa 3062. Overview, details about units, details about ranks and uniforms, stuff like that.
Technical Readout 3039 is good, has details about most common IS 'mechs before the Clan Invasion. Even if you don't play the tabletop game, you may find it interesting if you like to read about the lore behind the 'mechs.
FrontalMonk
Banned
I don't know that I'll get the house books, but I'll probably shell out for the tech readout.
Yeah, it's really weird that they don't even include the 3025 Technical Readout. Just remove the Unseen mechs from the PDF and there you go.
It's too bad that they don't include the Unseen since those were supposed to be the absolutely most common 'Mechs from that era. At least we should be getting a number of them in this game.
I believe that TRO: 3039 is a combination of TRO: 3026, the non-Unseen of TRO: 3025, and the fighters from Areotech.
More_Badass
Member
Campaign's at $1,785.960 with Paypal. Getting closer...
dreamstation
Gold Member
Another 2 backers jumping on board here. My partner and I loved Mechwarrior 2 back in the day so we just have to support this.