I have no worries about Alex Iglecias / FD's talents. I have seen him work miracles in the past. This guy made Jagermechs look like a force to be reckoned with.
Not sure what he'd have to fear about doing a Timberwolf, as he's done them several times before.
I'm more concerned about the game features itself. There are a lot of people that have been arguing to make this game even MORE detatched from the Battletech universe and system than before. The thought of that makes me even more nervous, but there are equally as many of us (Many of us coming from a background of playing the older Mechwarrior 2 and 3 series, as well as the [amazing] tabletop game) rooting to bring the Mechwarrior series back to it's roots, getting rid of many exploits in the system like Coolant Flushes, Weapons with perfect accuracy, and Jump-sniping; as well as putting limitations into the game so that rather than dumbing down customization like Mechwarrior 4 did, we give full Battletech-style customization, but include strong incentives to keep your 'mechs in their stock configurations, and make customization risky in order to deter people from min-maxing and upsetting the balance of the game.
Iglecias is an amazing artist, and I've been following his work ever since he started drawing Atlases stomping people dressed as bipedal pseudo-animals. and Maulers craving Arby's after a hard days' work; His skill in illustrating Battletech 'mechs is unsurpassed by anyone I've ever seen. However, the graphics will eventually be considered second rate, the artwork - dated, and when the chips are down, if the game doesn't fall into the Pay-to-win trap, the only way it will continue to survive is to maintain a loyal fanbase. I'll tell you now, Battletech fans are some of the most loyal fans out there, many of us having stuck around since the mid 90s to as far back as the universe's conception in 1984.
The Mechwarrior series has been badly mistreated and milked like the proverbial cash cow that it was by Microsoft, turning it's video game representations into empty husks of it's former self. I can only hope that Piranha will be taking great big steps to reverse the damage.
Hawken's hitting the market soon with another western-robot First Person game that takes place in an urban environment - Mechwarrior Online would probably do better as the thinking-mans' giant robot game with plenty of flavor, while we leave Hawken to be the pretty shoot'em up where you can turn your brain off, earn achievements, and just climb the rankings ladder with your twitch-click trigger finger.
Edited by ice trey, 07 November 2011 - 10:32 PM.