126 replies to this topic

[Promptus]

Needs moar dragons

[veretax]

Catapult Pilot to Dragon Pilot. "Hey Does this Mech make me look fat?"


LOL

[Breeze]

This needs to be made into a wallpaper!

[TreeSaint]

InnerSphereNews, on 23 October 2011 - 07:32 PM, said:

Welcome to Dev Blog 0!

Why is it called Dev Blog 0? Well, a lot has happened in the two years since we first announced MechWarrior back in 2009, and we felt a quick recap would help bring everyone up to speed on the events of the last 2 years. In order to make this blog a little more personal, we have referred to many people by first name.
The usage of we generally refers to:

• Jordan Weisman founded FASA and co-created BattleTech. Jordan has also been responsible for numerous other ventures including WizKids, and Smith & Tinker.
  
• Russ Bullock, Owner/President of Piranha Games Inc.
  
• Bryan Ekman, Owner/Creative Director of Piranha Games Inc.
  
• And sometimes the entire team at PGI, some 50+ awesome developers!

So let’s go back to the beginning before the 2009 announcement, when Piranha Games first began working with the MechWarrior license.
Rebooting Piranha Games

Three years ago, during the summer 2008, we put in motion a new strategy for Piranha, one that would focus our efforts on building killer original action games. With this ultimate goal in mind, we focused on three key areas.

• Only take on action based work-for-hire games, such as Transformers 2 and Duke Nukem Forever.
  
• Build an experienced development team, capable of creating fun and engaging products.
  
• Develop a game by acquiring or licensing an existing intellectual property (IP).

With these goals in mind, we began identifying properties that fit the bill. In October 2008, while looking into the MechWarrior rights, Russ, learned that Jordan was working on a new venture at Smith & Tinker. Jordan, through S&T had licensed some of the digital FASA rights back from Microsoft. Not long after the initial call, we began working with Jordan on a new concept, a major update to the MechWarrior franchise.
Rebooting MechWarrior

The initial ideas revolved around revitalizing or rebooting the series by focusing on two areas:

• Increasing the overall graphical fidelity of the entire game, especially the BattlMechs.
  
• Solve some of the long standing gameplay issues from previous MechWarrior games.

From these two key areas, early design pillars emerged in the form of:

• Urban Combat to address circle strafing and long range sniping.
  
• Dynamic Battlefield further expanded on the concepts of Urban Combat and mechs having roles.
  
• Dynamic pacing, introduced an early version of one of the final pillars, Information Warfare.

It would be designed for the Xbox 360 and PC. The game would take place on the planet Deshler, in the year 3015. Single player would revolve around Adrian Kohl and his exploits during an invasion by Kuritan forces. A gritty series of missions, designed to draw people deep into the rich vibrant and treacherous world of BattleTech. Multiplayer was a blend of features from previous MechWarrior games and modern FPS experiences. The package as a whole was the first step in making MechWarior cool again.
We continued to iterate on the design for several weeks, then started developing a plan of action.
Early on we decided to produce a marketing video that would demonstrate many of the core features and rebooted art style. We had three goals:

• Announce the project and generate a major buzz within the gaming community.
  
• Generate publisher interest.
  
• Increase Piranha’s profile as a quality developer with publishers and the community.

The marketing campaign contained 3 teaser videos , the final full length trailer, and a feature interview on IGN. We rolled out the plan during the second week of July, 2009.
The reaction was overwhelming. We anticipated the announcement would generate a lot of buzz, however the end result outperformed even our highest expectations.
Oh Yeah, Harmony Gold

Contrary to all the press and speculation that Harmony Gold was getting in the way of a deal or development, this had no impact whatsoever on development or signing a deal for MechWarrior.
Closing a Deal

The hard work began in earnest after the video release. We had an aggressive schedule to visit publishers and gauge interest. In the month of August we met with all of the major publishers, pitched the MechWarrior game to a captive audience and waited. The answers rolled in slowly, starting with the smaller publishers. Then word showed up from the big five. The answer was no.
We knew going in, there were two major risks. No PS3 version due to a Microsoft restriction, and the epic market collapse and major recession. In the end, it was mostly the lack of a PS3 option that did us in. The scope and budget required to develop a console reboot needed the support of a PS3 SKU and we just couldn’t convince publishers to take a risk. By late fall 2009, our dreams of making a MechWarrior game, began slowly drifting away.
Through the end of 2009 and into 2010 we rallied numerous times, reducing scope and budget, re-pitching the concept as a LIVE only title, etc. etc. In the end, nothing stuck.
To be honest, 2008/09 were some of the hardest times this company has ever seen. We spent a lot of time, resources, money and energy on MechWarrior, and it wasn’t looking good.
Then, in the spring of 2010, we secured the Duke Nukem Forever contract. This was a huge achievement and a cornerstone in our development history. MechWarrior played a large role in helping us secure the deal. A few key hires filled out our incredibly talented multiplayer AAA team.
MechWarrior took a back seat, as we focused on a very challenging and time compressed project.
2010 ended, and we rolled into 2011 without much fanfare as Duke Nukem Forever entered the final phases of development.
The Birth of MechWarrior Online

In the winter months of 2011 we assessed the state of MechWarrior. We came to the realization that any further work on MechWarrior would come at great risk to PGI. If we planned to take on significant risk, we needed to control the IP. After several sessions of deliberation, we decided to plunge in head first. Russ approached Smith & Tinker with regards to licensing the MechWarrior rights and within a few weeks, we signed a deal.
Not long after signing, we quickly realized licensing the rights was one of the most important and future sighted decisions made by us in the last 12 years. Offers were coming in from all over the planet, especially to make or license a free-to-play MechWarrior game.
Because of the overwhelming interest, we decided to spend some time researching what a free-to-play (F2P) MechWarrior game would look like. We spent some design cycles adapting our previous concepts and quickly realized a synergy between F2P and the BattleTech universe. We worked hard through spring, negotiating, designing, and rejecting a few potential partners. As it turns out, we didn’t have to look very far.
During much of the past 12 months there was a local group that also had a large amount of interest in developing and publishing a MechWarrior title. Once Piranha had become the license holder they came over immediately and met with us. From this point onward we decided to combine our efforts with Piranha as the rights holder and with them as the Publisher. After about 6 months of hard work together, funding had been secured, Infinity Game Publishing was born and development could begin.
The most positive thing that can be said about the relationship between Piranha and IGP is that both companies wanted to make the same game and Piranha was free to execute upon our vision.
The road to this Blog was an adventure filled with many hurtles and momentous occasions. We are excited and proud of the direction MechWarrior is taking as a PC F2P game. It offers us the ability to make a successor worthy of the MechWarrior name, and one that fans will enjoy for years to come!
Welcome to MechWarrior Online.

nice, *** is the garbage above, like the password requirements for posting a bug. over - fricken- sized.
I forgot what constructive answer i was gonna post.

[Orzorn]

Breeze, on 31 May 2012 - 06:21 PM, said:

This needs to be made into a wallpaper!

Right click, view image (to make it the largest version), right click -> set as desktop background.

Done (as long as your monitor is 1920 x 1080).

[Mister Dubis]

that just sucks for that Catapult... poor guy doesnt have a chance

[Elgirts]

Well,...

That Catapult is in for a real pounding. But not from the jumping Dragon. Oh it'll get hurt from it, but the Atlas is moving into the Catapult's front facing and is in a prime position to take the Catapult down. Looking at the enemy damage size-up, the rear is lightly damaged, but the front is exposed which the Atlas can exploit. Plus, the other friendly Dragon is also in position to pound the Catapult to add insult to injury.

However, looking at the big picture, things do not look good for the friendly team as a whole. Both of the other friendlies are exposing their weakest side (Rear Torsos) to the other two enemy mechs moving into their rear quarter.

If I were the jumping mech's pilot, I'd consider aborting my attack on the Catapult, or perhaps take a snap shot at it's rear in passing as I focus my new attention onto that Jenner moving towards the friendly dragon to my left trying to distract it. If I'm lucky, I could draw it off and maybe force it to turn tail temporarily. I could then turn towards that Hunchback in the distance there before too much damage is done.

Unfortunately, it does look like the opposing team here will win the day. That is unless that 4th mech in the distance can get here in time

Edited by Elgirts, 31 May 2012 - 07:17 PM.

[Ramien]

What we don't see is the fourth member of the opposition. Are they already dead? Has nobody on the pilot's side seen them yet, so there's possibly an ambush waiting to happen?

[Matt331]

I think the point of views mech has this one the catapult in front is faced the other direction leaving a good Clean rear torso shot. The catapult on the pov mech's catapult it going to face off with the mech behind it then we have the mechs on the side fighting. After a while the mech all the way in the Val will come in and help the mech on the left then freeing up to get the other two. Giving the pov team a win

[Frisk]

That Catapult is nearly worthless in that situation.

[urdead2me]

one dead cata for sure.

[Elgirts]

Frisk, on 31 May 2012 - 07:22 PM, said:

That Catapult is nearly worthless in that situation.

Not necessarily.. That Catapult is effectively drawing fire from at least 3 mechs while his team mates are moving into a more advantageous position behind two of them. Yes he will more than likely be destroyed, but at least it's pilot is making the best use of his sacrifice.

[Ryedog]

that is a dead mech walking. ill be suprised if it survived those punishing rear shots. but the overall victor seems unclear sense there was alot of othe mechs out there and thet dragon was mediumly damaged

[xSlammerx]

Awsome ScreenShot ...Can't Waite

[Zakatak]

The best thing you can do in a situation like that is to vector your jets forward and try to pile drive the Atlas into the ground. Catapult 2 in the background is in a good position to take out Dragon 1 or do some rear damage to Atlas. Dragon 2 is currently a Mechwarrior like you, before he takes a Jenner to the rear plating. Atlas may be in the middle of the action, but at least he has the perks of being an Atlas.

Advantage: Friendles

[Kenyon Burguess]

im just pleased someone posted a ride in a dragon

[Wahlnutz]

TreeSaint, on 31 May 2012 - 06:24 PM, said:

nice, *** is the garbage above, like the password requirements for posting a bug. over - fricken- sized.
I forgot what constructive answer i was gonna post.

Dude, what in the name of sweet baby Jesus are you talking about??

[Corbon Zackery]

The Cat would have the Advantage with 4 M.lasers to the Dragons AC 5 and 2 M lasers. The LRM wont lock at that range.

However since the CATs CT is messed up a few good shots should bring it down.

The fact that the Dragon was at 55% heat might mean it shut down right after the screen shot. Or couldn't fire for a few seconds a thats needed to notice a mech coming in from behind.

Cool shot though

[CWSureshot]

At first glance, its easy to see that the rear of the Catapult is exposed and surrounded by 3 enemy mechs. obviously a big disadvantage. there is a friendly Jenner on the left and i believe to be a friendly Hunchback way back near the raised land.

Every battle can be turned around with the right teamwork and strategy and clearly the exact opposite is just as likely. I see the Cata,Jenner,Hunch team to be in an unfavorable situation espclly assuming that Cat is packing 2 lrms and 4 med lasers. the lrms are doing no good at 73m from an enemy. The only hope for this team would be to try to make it back to where the Hunchback is to get cover.

First establish a single target to focus on while retreating. I would choose the Atlas. The jenner can circle around the party doing damage while escorting the Cat back to the Hunchback behind some cover. The Cat pilot should put a laser salvo into the atlas and JJ over its head toward the friendly Hunchback (or H5 on the grid).

Hoping the Cat can leave the Atlas behind some distance, and maybe somehow dodging a few salvos from the party, the Jenner could quickly catch up behind to maybe even finish off the Atlas that has been taking AC punishment from the Hunchback due to being too focused on the fleeing Catapult. If the Atlas is down thats a big plus but wld be difficult. Chances are the two Dragons 1N would have ravaged a flanking jenner or the Cat would have taken too many shots from behind.

Thats the beauty of this game and the battletech universe. You never know how a battle will unfold

[G34R B0X]

Whats not in this picture is the atlas just off to the right about to unleash Unholy Damnation onto that Dragon. ( at least thats what i really hope, i lovers the Cat)