690 replies to this topic

[ltmyndonos]

10am PST tomorrow, so 1800 GMT(or 6pm GMT)

[andrebrazil]

Nice weaponz! To the founders, let us go

[Norhiak]

ohh... start tomorrow? nice....!!!

[Ahma]

tomorrow? I thought it was today... damn

[Adrienne Vorton]

18.00 GMT? Thats not before 7pm at my place... well, who cares...TODAY is

Edited by Adrienne Vorton, 18 June 2012 - 08:14 PM.

[Adrienne Vorton]

Ahma, on 18 June 2012 - 08:10 PM, said:

tomorrow? I thought it was today... damn

ahma, some ppl still are stuck with monday for us Europeans its today:)

Edited by Adrienne Vorton, 18 June 2012 - 08:17 PM.

[Shepard1738]

Been reading the forums off and on for a couple weeks now but this is my first post. read the developers update today and desperately want the founders tag but my video card doesn't quite cut the mustard. gonna be a couple weeks before i can spend enough for the required upgrade. should i order the founders package anyway even though i don't think my outdated radeon 5570 can run the game or will i be expected to play straight away?

[Norhiak]

hehehe... yes! lets check how much we can run to the nearest computer... lol

anyone know where can we buy this packs? or how?

Edited by Norhiak, 18 June 2012 - 08:35 PM.

[Ling Xiaoyu]

Artourius, on 18 June 2012 - 08:28 PM, said:

Been reading the forums off and on for a couple weeks now but this is my first post. read the developers update today and desperately want the founders tag but my video card doesn't quite cut the mustard. gonna be a couple weeks before i can spend enough for the required upgrade. should i order the founders package anyway even though i don't think my outdated radeon 5570 can run the game or will i be expected to play straight away?

there would be no obligation to play at anytime. its up to you to buy now or wait.!

[Ginrummy]

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.

okay so where do we buy them I don't see a link posted

[SilverSkull]

Russ Bullock, on 15 June 2012 - 01:10 PM, said:

Hey MechWarrior fans,

Through conversations internally (as well as by the suggestion of some of our great Beta testers) we felt we needed to give everyone an update on the state of the game, especially as we head towards the Founders Program. It is important that everyone understand what exactly they are buying and what they should expect. Now there will be a new press release and email that will go out on June 19^th to launch the program, but for extra clarity I’ll go over some critical points here on the forums with you. Here is a roughly described timeline to help set your expectations:

MechWarrior Online is currently in Closed Beta and to be more specific, what we have dubbed internally as ‘Closed Beta 1.’ For Closed Beta 1 we had a goal of sending out 10,000 beta keys in total, and we should achieve that in the next week or so. Our next step will be to start selling the Founders Packages starting Tuesday June 19^th - and for clarity this is a limited time offer, which also guarantees Closed Beta access on the Injection date. Our next step comes on July 10^th where we are scheduled to move to our production hardware, and thus will have the capability of hosting many thousands of simultaneous players. Then we’ll be at the point where we move to Closed Beta 2. Once we have achieved Closed Beta 2 we continue to ramp up the beta testers to the point where we can handle the injection of the founders program. I should say that it is logical that this next round of beta testers will likely be drawn from those early purchasers of the founders program; it only makes sense since they have shown such dedication and are quite likely to be excellent beta testers.

Now the next date of course is the injection of the founders purchasers, and let me be the first to break the news, this date has shifted from July 17^th to Aug 7^th. There is a very simple explanation as to the new date - some of the key production hardware was delayed in arriving to the data center. We simply need to make sure we have a minimum amount of time to work with the production hardware and be confident that we can handle the loads of the Founders Program. Of course the next date to come along after that will be Open Beta. I cannot announce a date at this time but I can say we are still going to ship this summer as promised, so if you look at the Founders access date of Aug 7^th and when summer ends, one can probably make an accurate enough guess as to our currently planned open beta date.

Okay, back to managing expectations of the content of the game once you get access, the same logic applies to both those that are and will be lucky enough to get a beta key and those gaining access to the game on Aug 7^th through the founders program. Come Aug 7^th when the customers of the Founders Program gain access to the game we are still going to be in Closed Beta - therefore not every feature we have discussed on the web site will be playable. Currently in the beta we have been introducing a patch every 2 weeks where more features are included and that process will likely continue up until Open Beta and beyond. The end result is that we expect to have each of the features we have announced and discussed on the web site in the game by the Open Beta date with one unfortunate exception. That exception is the Community Warfare pillar; it’s a big system and extremely important to us however we did not want to delay the game especially when it is something that can so logically be added onto the product post launch. That way we can get everyone playing this summer as planned having a great time working on their Mech and pilot trees, then the depth of Community Warfare will be added into the game. I don’t have an exact projected release of the Community Warfare feature set but we fully expect to have the core of the community experience in the game within 90 days of open beta.

A note of clarification on the BattleMech’s – We have a system for announcing the Mech’s to the community on the web site but one should not assume this means that all of those Mech’s are currently present in the beta or that they are all available come Open Beta. We essentially add them into the game one at a time in very near the same way they are announced on the web site. Our expectation is that there will be 10 unique model types along with all their variants making for a total of around 40 different chassis come Open Beta. From that point forward they will continue to be added at a very regular pace.

So as it pertains to the Founders Program, they aren’t meant represent the value you receive immediately upon gaining access to the game. The value of the Founders Package is that it is a lifetime reward and recognition opportunity. All of the hard currency you get in the product will be yours to spend over the entire lifetime of the product, the Founders tag which will be available on the forums immediately after purchasing your Founders Package will mark you uniquely for the entire lifetime of the product. The same can be said for the Founder’s ’Mech’s, they will be unique on the battlefield marking you as an original founder of MWO as well as providing a boost to C-bill earning for the lifetime of the product.

In the end this new frontier of online free to play titles really is a shift in thinking for all of us. So many of us are so trained to think about retail products that barely change after they are sold to us in the store and it’s hard to grasp the concept of a game like MWO. Yes we still have lots of work to do between here and Open Beta but our work won’t stop there, we will immediately work to put in the Community Warfare features and from there it will be a sprint to the invasion of the clans and so on. While I am at it here are a few other key pieces of information people need in order to make their purchase decisions.

Okay European players, here is the answer you have been looking for: Yes you can buy the Founders Package and you will never be blocked from continuing to play on the North American servers. Also if we are able to set up servers in your region you will be given a onetime opportunity to transfer to those regions servers taking everything you own with you.

And of course the elusive System requirements:

MechWarrior Online Minimum System Spec:

CPU:
Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz
Athlon II X2 245e

GPU:
GeForce 8800GT
Radeon HD 5600/5700

RAM:
4 GB

OS:
Windows XP 32-bit SP3

DirectX:
DX9

HDD Space:
4 GB


MechWarrior Online Recommended System Spec:

CPU:
Core i3-2500
AMD Athlon II X4 650

GPU:
GeForce GTX 285
Radeon HD 5830

RAM:
8 GB

OS:
Windows 7 SP-1 64-Bit

DirectX:
DX9

HDD Space:
4 GB

A few notes on the system requirements for absolute clarity. Right now a duo core system is our minimum spec machine but it is also our main focus of concern. It is playable on those specifications and I have tested it myself but it is currently very much a minimum spec type of experience running on low detail settings. Currently it’s obvious that a Quad core system is the key as even the earliest Core 2 Quad systems run the game very well. However at this point in time we have only been able to spend a very minor amount of time working on optimizations and it is our goal since there are still so many out there to get the Core 2 Duo systems running much faster.

Okay, hopefully that gives you guys all the information you could possibly want to be the best beta tester, potential Founders Program customer or simply consumer of MechWarrior Online. Sorry if one or more items isn’t exactly as you would hope it to be, but were working hard and we truly feel that all signs thus far say that the core experience of MWO is everything we could have hoped for. Now we just need to keep adding layers of features. Thanks for reading and remember you guys are the best community in all of gaming, keep treating each other with respect and together we will bring MechWarrior back to glory.

Russ Bullock
President
Piranha Games Inc.

thanks for the info!!!

[Phoenix888]

OK...

So how do I get a founders pack then?

[dragutz4]

hi ...i wait this game it;s very nice ..

[tontoepfer]

I'm quite excited about this, I realy hope I can get a betakey

[Jammers]

cool, at least now i know what the specs are, i know what my new laptop needs to have. cheers for the update, I can't wait!

[Snake2208]

Wait Wait Whaaat? What do you mean 8GB of RAM? i only got 6! dang this gotta be the heaviest and most RAM consuming game out there :/ huh guess ill have to upgrade 3X4GB=12GB DDR3 RAM at triple channel here i come! AUCHHHH....... my pockets hurt and maybe upgrade my Gtx 460 with a 670 while im at it.... i need money xD

[Spoonrific]

SWEET!!!, Sweet sweet.... SO EXCITED!

[Valfrey]

Just wondering, would this ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 cut it?

I'm bad with computers XD

[cipher]

Valfrey, on 19 June 2012 - 08:08 AM, said:

Just wondering, would this ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 cut it?

I'm bad with computers XD

Unfortunately, no, the 4250 is pretty slow.

[Titanx]

Will mine work? ATI Radeon 4800 HD 512MB. If i read correctly, i think its near the min required?