Glad they are working on VR support. If this game is even halfway decent with good Vive support I will be there Day 1. Vox Machinae was super barebones when I played it on the DK2 and it was already a blast.
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Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries announced for 2018 (Designed for VR)
- Thread starter BrokenFiction
- Start date
I honestly have no idea where they are getting the money from if this really is self-published. MW:O cannot be that big of a cash-cow.
Someone uploaded Russ Bollock's live playthrough at Mechcon (not the same one as the one on the official webpage), which shows that the segment with the Raven isn't entirely scripted as there's different AI behavior, different death animations, and that there's some destructible environment.
If they really do self-publish this has to be the OT title one day.
Probably have enough money to start it... I reckon there will be a Kickstarter or something like that.
Of course, there could be someone funding this, though who and why i cannot fathom.
BigTnaples
Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
I actually would not discount the idea that MWO makes enough bank to fund or justify loans etc to get it funded. It has a very dedicated following of people with real discretionary income. I am pretty casual but I went through a good 6 month window of playing it fairly regularly and had no problem spending 20 - 60$ a month on it.
The campaign sounds ridiculously ambitious in scale. If they do wind up trying to give such mission variety, I'm curious how they're gonna handle the various missions & maps. Like coming up with enough various missions to ensure having options from each house at any given time depending on how the player chooses to play out the campaign sounds maddening for something on a Mechwarrior scale, especially considering the budget these guys will likely be restricted to.
DouglasteR
Member
UE4's gotten a lot better for VR in the last few updates. Looking forward to this!
What about the possibility of a Linux release though? Battletech has been announced for Mac and Linux, so non-MS platforms. And using UE4 should make Linux and Mac versions possible unless they use additional 3rd-party Windows-only software.
Considering how slow MWO development is, it doesn't seem to be doing that great. Unless they've been funneling the money toward this MW5?
Is it slow? Granted I play all the games so I have a hard time keeping up but there is a nice post up detailing all they accomplished in 2016 and the roadmap for 2017 all with a constant stream of new mechs and for a smallish team it seems like a pretty reasonable development schedule.
For reference:
https://mwomercs.com/news/2016/12/1670-december-roadmap-beyond
Hendrick's
If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
My biggest issue with MWO, aside from PG pushing DLC while the core game was broken, is that they are horrible at balancing. Complete yo-yo style nerfs and buffs.
Yeah, how about adding missing features back. IK (should've been added back ages ago), ammo switching for LB-X types (and adding alternate missile loads while at it), role warfare (!!!), actually figuring what the fuck they're doing with the Community Warfare and standard game modes.
Steady stream of 'Mechs is there just to guarantee income stream. It isn't really game changing or improving content.
This too. Whoever is responsible for balancing has no idea what they're doing. And i recall them commenting once that "heat-neutral medium range build would be exploiting the system if it were possible" or something like that. Basically they're intentionally reducing the number of viable builds.
I guess balancing won't be a problem in a SP game.
I did think it was funny how the game had reached some kind of weird state of balance in closed beta because the netcode was so broken that sniping and LRMs were less effective, and light mechs were viable because of their lag shield. Although I guess streak-cats existed so it wasn't balanced at all. Eh, beats PPC sniping.
I did think it was funny how the game had reached some kind of weird state of balance in closed beta because the netcode was so broken that sniping and LRMs were less effective, and light mechs were viable because of their lag shield. Although I guess streak-cats existed so it wasn't balanced at all. Eh, beats PPC sniping.
It certainly matters.
I'll cite Obsidian's Fallout New Vegas as an example. After patches, it was quite well balanced, making many builds viable or at least interesting if not equal. When it came to designing builds and using them, it was far more pleasant than Bethesda's action RPGs.
BattleTech has several weapons that are seriously on the weak side and need to be balanced.
Machine guns, flamers, small lasers, at least. Medium lasers, PPCs, large lasers are pretty much all you need, though missiles grant some useful flexibility.
MGs and flamers can be made better by giving valid targets for them. They're not terribly useful against 'Mechs (except as "crit-seekers" though SRMs do that better). But add vehicles and infantry who are vulnerable to them... and make sure designs that do not mount them might get into trouble (this way players should be encouraged to have at least one 'Mech dedicated for this purpose if they don't carry anti-vehicle/infantry weapons by themselves).
Small lasers are useful in large banks for fast designs but at least in MWO it is mostly impossible to use many enough at once, plus their short range in general makes them weak compared to medium lasers. Adding range to them isn't a great fix though, since this would reduce usefulness of MGs and flamers as they compete in the half a ton-1-ton weapon class.
And there should be no 'Mechs that are completely useless. Traditionally lights are kinda terrible in practice in MechWarrior games and tabletop BattleTech, since mediums can usually do same things but better.
I haven't kept up with MWO in a long time but they tried to balance the traditionally weaker weapons by playing a bit fast and loose with the rules, buffing them in ways that didn't specifically go against the tabletop numbers. For example small lasers delivered their damage more quickly, medium and large lasers would fire for a longer time giving the enemy a chance to spread the damage around. I ran small laser builds on Jenners and Hunchbacks in alpha/closed beta with surprising success, but I could literally pilot circles around most people at the time and I played with a team that could back me up.
What I meant by balance not being a problem is in the context that they've been working on balancing MWO for years. Even in the early days the balance only fell apart because of the particulars around small group deathmatch online multiplayer. Something like a catapult with 6 SSRMs would be super useless in a singleplayer mechwarrior game, but it was OP in MWO (for a little while) because of other factors like lag and not having to worry about ammo very much.
Likewise, light mechs were strangely powerful in early MWO because the netcode was terrible and you couldn't hit them. If they want people to do something other than boat around in a 100 ton mech in singleplayer they'll need to make lights attractive in some other way...being cheaper to run isn't necessarily the answer.
Either way, having smaller targets will give the 'puny' weapons more of a purpose so I'm not terribly worried about that aspect. More so about PGI getting the game out in a non-busted state in a remotely reasonable time frame.
Catapult with quad Streaks was fun in MW4 in singleplayer, especially if you upped the speed a bit. Multiplayer? It was an so unbalanced mess anyway, so comment on that. As disappointed i am with MWO balance, it is miles ahead MW4...
Speaking of missiles, i hope they finally fix SRMs for MW5. That is, SRMs should be lock-on -capable missiles but perhaps with limited agility, they should not act as rocket unless dumb-fired. Streaks should be high-agility versions of SRMs that do no fire unless lock-on is achieved.
And i hope they advance timeline to a point where i can get my MRM racks... 80 missiles slamming on a target after you managed to time them perfectly is the best thing there is.
Speaking of missiles, i hope they finally fix SRMs for MW5. That is, SRMs should be lock-on -capable missiles but perhaps with limited agility, they should not act as rocket unless dumb-fired. Streaks should be high-agility versions of SRMs that do no fire unless lock-on is achieved.
And i hope they advance timeline to a point where i can get my MRM racks... 80 missiles slamming on a target after you managed to time them perfectly is the best thing there is.
What do you mean? You want to play other MechWarrior games or...?
(If you want to play older MechWarriors, you're out of luck. Unless you have an older PC and manage to find discs somewhere, you ain't getting to play them.)
irfaanator
Banned
I quit around maybe post radar jammer. I dont remember, but yea it was hilarious how going faster made you harder to hit b/c of lag.
There is no real legal way to get them.
And it is highly unlikely there will be one in the future, i think. I think MW2 or 3 has its source code lost, plus the other has rights issues (technically Microsoft owns MechWarrior/Battletech license for video games but that doesn't mean they own all the assets or stuff in some cases...).
MW4? Well, Microsoft just sits on their ass and doesn't care. This assuming the game's source isn't lost. I mean, they could release that on GoG or Steam or Windows Store or whatever it is called but...
IF MW5 and BattleTech are successful, i think Microsoft might get interested but until that happens, nah. Just wishful thinking.
AlexFlame116
Member
My dad was always gushing about these games when I was younger. I think it's time for me to step in and play them for myself.
You forgot "All systems nominal"
RenegadeXV8
Banned
Yep. I played MWO for about 2 years. PGI has no idea what they are doing most of the time.
Do note that for years, the "Assault" game mode consisted of standing in a box for a minute until your team won. They removed knockdowns because they could never figure out how to balance it. Still no melee. Movement physics were flat-out broken for a long time. They always have to end up reworking every single core system because their initial implementation is half-assed or terrible (remember UI 2.0?). Community Warfare is still not anywhere close to what they initially promised.
This is the developer handling MechWarrior 5. And it's why some of us have no faith.
irfaanator
Banned
but yea I have some hesitation with MW5 if PGI is developing it based on my MWO experience. There's always the MW turn based made by the shadowrun team thats being developed. I havent heard much about that one recently though.
Given that the demo they showed off wasn't scripted(according to people who played it), it seems they already have a decent bit of the ground work done(unlike when they showed that Mechwarrior Reboot CG trailer). I wouldn't be surprised.
It's been making good progress. The beta will be out at the beinning of next year for backers like me and the game is on track to release in the summer of next year like they were aiming for.
Also, MWO's problems stem from being F2P. Oh, I so hope that MW:5 mercs has multiplayer so we can forget about MWO.
Not sure how hard this analogy will ring with you, but Mechcommander is this series' Final Fantasy Tactics, and is completely free to download.
Start there.
Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries was freeware distributed by mektek for awhile(only stopped because they didn't want to host it) and is now abandonware and it would not be illegal for anyone to download either.
Actually, Microsoft owns rights to it. It is not abandonware really. MekTek had permission to distribute it but presumably this lapsed when they stopped.
Official BattleTech forum forbids link distribution for the free release because it is no longer free or available officially.
This is utterly false.
Mech Commander 2 was fun. I'm not sure I ever played MC1.
I also enjoyed the Mech Assault games on Xbox. Sure, I would have preferred they were full PC sequels instead, but they were fun for what they were.
That really how it is? If they're not even giving people a way to buy and they released it for free in the past then it would be ridiculous for them to enforce anything on that point.
They might not enforce it but just pointing out a technicality.
(And i'd advice against sharing any links on GAF without clearing it with a mod. Abandonware, real or not, is very gray area.)
I wonder... Microsoft did release MechCommander 1 and 2 as freeware for some reason, wonder if they'd be willing to release MW4 again if someone were to ask right people? (Of course, the real problem is the MS legal department...)
I've long held an assumption that a worst place to discuss a video game are its own forums.
(And it doesn't help when developers often seem to have the same idea and use other outlets.)
I assume the whiners consist of idiot-founders who thought they were robbed when they voluntarily crowdfunded a free to play multiplayer game, and of those who think MW5 will somehow take away from MWO.
(I was a MWO founder but sure as hell ain't angry. I know what i put my money toward to... mostly, didn't expect quite that level of incompetence but admittedly there are worse games.)
The MWO forum is a poisoned cesspool of bittervets. Their isn't a single announcement PGI could make, which would elicit a positive response.
Even the idea of MWO moving to UE4 has been shit on as a negative.
Go to OutreachHPG on Reddit, if you want actual discussion.
That would require using reddit...
One could try to resurrected GAF's MWO OT!
...
lol, i think there are like, what, 3-4 players, me included.
It's literally the only reason I visit Reddit, because all of the Tier 0 players post there.
Get in the Battletech/Mechwarrior/Mechcommander mood
Play the old Mechcommander for free
What is Battletech
A Primer
Art & Wallpapers
Wallpapers at Battletech.com
Art of Battletech
Intros
Mechwarrior 2 Intro (THE GOAT)
- Clan Wolf Intro + Jade Falcon intro
Mechwarrior 2: Ghost Bear's Lecacy Intro
Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries intro
Mechwarrior 3 intro
Mechwarrior 4 intro (maximum cheesy acting)
Mechcommander intro
The evolution of the Battletech video games
The Evolution of Mechwarrior 1989-2012
Soundtracks
Mechwarrior 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM3MwpkVYKQ&list=PL3E409CD81FFF6F55
Ghost Bear’s Legacy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4sqtJ4xNlY&list=PL0u2Omk_bLpteQc2Gv2_KEIFahsvYQstD
Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0u6_IYz7YQ&list=PLF89995D427D6D230
CouchDweller
Member
I poured a lot of hours into Mechwarrior Online, but something about it just didn't make it very replayable, now i'm honestly bored of it. And now this is announced and all i can think when i look at it is "Meh".