Darren: Hey everyone, this is Darren, also known as Bombadil from No Guts, No Galaxy, and I'd like to welcome you to the Mechwarrior Online Dev Vlog #6. This is our chance to get the know the devs and hear directly from them on the past, present, and future of Mechwarrior Online. In this episode we'll hear about an overhaul to the modules system, various gameplay updates, community warfare, and new maps. So let's jump right in and meet community manager Nikolai, aka Niko Snow, with some news about the exciting new match rejoin function.
Niko: Greetings, Mechwarriors, my name is Nikolai Lubkiewicz. I've regrouped with Piranha Games in Vancouver to help bring you a better community interaction. You can find me on Facebook, on Twitter, on the forums, and pretty much any other social media outlet we'll be running. I'll be here to comment and respond to any questions you have. I'm also here today to let you know about the rejoin function that we're adding to the game. With this function you'll be able to select a mech that's currently ingame and select rejoin. If you've been within 2 minutes of disconnecting from the game, you will still be able to earn your rewards from that match. This works in solo mode, in group mode, and in private mode. Be advised, though, if you are playing with a group, you will have to rejoin your group after the match is completed.
Darren: Next, we'll hear from Alex on the overhaul of the module system and new clan modules.
Alex: When it comes to the new module slot system the most important thing to mention is that now module slots are assigned with a category. These categories are weapon modules, consumables, and mech modules. Now, you know weapon modules, you know consumables, but what are mech modules? Mech modules are basically everything that's not a weapon module or a consumable, for example, the hill climb, that's a typical mech module - goes into these slots. If you want to equip these slots, for example, a weapon slot - only weapon modules go into that slot. If you want, for example, to equip the artillery strike - that goes into the consumable slot, and so on. So you can't mix categories with slots, that's very strict. Every mech comes with a certain configuration of these slots and the most common one is 2 weapon slots, 2 consumable slots, and 1 mech module slot. Now, that can vary depending on the mech, same as consumable slots [corrects himself] number of consumable slots are varying right now as well. If you master a mech, you'll get, still get, 1 additional module slot and in this case it will be a weapon module slot. Last, but not least, same patch we're releasing a set of Clan weapon modules. They're basically the equivalent to the Inner Sphere weapon modules, the ones that affect range that we released before. So, we look at 18 new modules that, for example, affect the range of the lasers, the ACs, or the flamers.
Darren: And now Paul will share some of the upcoming gameplay updates, including Clan LRM minimum range and changes to the jump jet heat system.
Paul: Ah, so there's been a lot of work since last time we had this little chat, so I'll just start off with Clan minimum LRM range. Now, that's been set to 0 right now, from 0 meters to 180 meters; we have actually got a new implementation by everybody's favorite Brian Buckton and it is now doing damage from 0 to 180. But it's not a linear increase in damage, it's actually an exponential curve that's going to be doing damage. So, at halfway, around 90 meters, you're going to be doing probably around 25%-30% damage, but it increases rapidly from 90 meters out to 180. It'll be something to get used to and it'll be actually getting you some damage in the minimum range zone, so, take a look at that.
So, one of the new things coming into the game is jump jet heat and jump jet thrust values. Now, jump jet heat is going to be fairly negligible, like, no matter how many jump jets you take. We didn't want to punish players crazily for taking maximum jump jets and we also didn't want to punish that player who only took minimum jump jets, for that matter. Right now you're going to notice that all jump jets, if you just take 1 on any class of mech, it's actually going to generate a base amount of heat. From there, every additional jump jet on top of that will add to that heat, but it's very, very minimal and we kept it that way because what's going to be happening is that you're going to be in a point of weapons lockdown when you are jumpjetting around a lot. If you allow yourself to cool down properly between jump jet use, you're going to be fine. But, for example, I was running around with one jump jet in a Griffin, armed with a PPc, I was firing the PPC, almost shut down, but at the same time I noticed that I could not jump around very much because I would generate just enough heat to prevent my mech from cooling. So, that's something that you're going to have to be very, very careful of when you're jumpjetting around because it will stop your weapon cooldowns, or, well, while you are jumping around.
The second thing about jump jets is that we're adding the different amounts of thrust provided for each and each additional jump jet that you equip to your mech. Now, one of the things that we've known about for a long time, and you guys have made it very clear through your voices, is that jump jets just aren't functioning properly in terms of how many you take. The difference between taking 1 jump jet and taking 6 jump jets was almost negligible, so we addressed that directly. Now, what this means is that we are actually pulling jump jet usage back into the way that canon really wanted you to use, and that's as a navigational tool rather than a flying tool. Light mechs are still going to be very, very nimble. They're still going to be able to jump fairly high up in the air, they're still going to be ablel to do their quick maneuver, quick snap turns, that type of thing. The mechs that are going to start feeling more of this impact is going to be slightly in the medium class, but the heavies and assaults are definitely going to feel this. You're not going to be jumping anywhere near as high as you used to be, but at the same time you're going to be bascially forced to be making that decision how high you want to jump and be able to keep the number of free slots and tonnage that you want for weaponry. That new system coming along, online, is going to be, it's going to be tough to get used to. But at the same time, I think it really adds to the dynamic of the game.
Darren: And finally, Russ will discuss the development of Community Warfare, and give us a preview of the newest maps coming to Mechwarrior Online.
Russ: Hey, everybody, I'm here with a real exciting message. Finally, I'm here in front of you in a Vlog to let you know that Community Warfare is fully underway, not just in design stages, but we've got a significant amount of our staff doing nothing but working on it now. So, I'm not going to go into the exact details here, that's too much for this video, but you guys have already received several posts, Command Chair posts from Paul about exactly what this first module is. We're calling it Merc Corp Unit Creation internally. Oftentimes, you've heard it referred to as Association - this is pretty much what that is. It's your ability to associate yourself with a faction, whether you create one or join one, and all the things listed by Paul that you can do within that - chat, tags for your unit, it's going to make a big difference as far as everyone just feeling like you're part of a community, relying less on, you know, third party tools or outside things, but can really exist inside of Mechwarrior Online as a unit. So that's very exciting, but that's just the first module that we're going to release this year. That first module, I won't commit to any ETA yet, but it is not too far off... Yeah. That should be a summer release, for sure, and another one later for the fall, as I discussed earlier was going to be, I guess we'll just call it Module 2 for now, and that's really the combat, where the combat happens. So, I expect we'll have resources within a month, actually, being able to work on that next module internally. So, fully committed to getting out Modules 1&2 this year, by this fall, and that'll encompass the vast majority of what, you know, we envisioned Community Warfare to be. Of course, I expect there'll be further modules, there'll be further additions, further suggestions from the community as to how we can go deeper and further and I expect we'll do that for the next, who knows, next 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 years, as long as Mechwarrior Online is around. But this I think we envision as fulfilling the original vision of what Community Warfare was, and be allowing players to exist as a unit and partake and to affect the outcome of these, you know, this unfolding of the map of the Inner Sphere.
Hey guys, I'm also very excited to let you guys know today that we have begun map production again. You guys know that I mentioned that all of our resouces were really buckled down on the Clan mechs and trying to make sure that release went, not only on time, but of the highest quality. So, I think you know that I'm very pleased with the work that all those guys did on the Clan mechs, but now it's time to get some resources back on making maps. So, we did a full assessment with our level designer over the last week on what was our quickest path to getting you guys a new map. And we assessed, a couple of these maps you might remember, we've mentioned them at some point, there was mention of a mech factory, there was mention of a swamp map or sometimes it was referred to as jungle, just to clarify that, that is one map, not two, and then also look at it and judge those maps in the light of creating something new using existing assets. After reviewing it, we did determine that it was quicker to finish off those other maps before moving on to creating something new, so our quickest way out is completing this mech factory. That's a working title, I don't know if it will be called Mech Factory in the end, it's much more of an industrial city, kind of nestled up in the hills. It's pretty interesting, it'll be another... definitely more of an urban setting, again, but more of an industrial-type setting and I think going to keep people in the action from the get-go. It looks really interesting, it's kind of a medium size, it's bigger than, perhaps, River City, but it's more of a Caustic Valley size, but it's an industrial urban setting. So, it'll bring something new and that's our quickest way to get another map in you guys' hands. I really hope within a month or so we'll be in, we'll be testing it internally and can get that out shortly after that. So, next after that, we think it will be best to work on the swamp map, so as soon as we're done this one, we'll move over to that. We've got some resources right now creating some assets in the background waiting for us to switch over to it.
And after that we'll start to look at creating brand new maps on, based on existing asset sets, so, maybe it's another Alpine meets Forest Colony, or something, there's lots of ideas, I'm sure you guys will be providing your thoughts on the forums. I would like to start some sort of community-driven map, not necessarily creation at first, but maybe just even in the way of ideas, there's lots of ways you guys can help. It just made sense for us to finish off what we already started previously because it was most, I guess, cost-effective and the quickest way to get you a map, but after that, I think we can start going to you guys more on ideas of what the next new map should be. There's also ideas there on how we reuse some of the existing maps, Canyon Network, for instance, one idea was have it more flooded, maybe there's some snow on the hills, maybe the actual canyons are a higher water level so it creates the, changes the dynamic of how the map is played. So, there's a lot of maps, I'm sure we can come up with ideas for, whether it's a night version of it or a snow version or some other weather variant. So there's a lot of ideas we can do there. There's also, I'm sure, a lot of people with ideas how we can create maps better for premium private matches and competitive play. You know, things that are built for 1v1, as an example, we might just take the caldera from Terra Therma and turn it into a small versus map. So there's plenty of room there for you guys to become involved pretty soon. I'd like you to give us a little more time to finish off a couple of these maps that have already been started and then, in the meantime, while we work on some sort of community, I guess, vetted process to see how you guys can get involved in the near future. So, there you have it, I'm looking forward to giving you guys a new map greatly, I can't wait for it, thanks for all your patience, and we'll talk to you guys soon. Thanks, bye.
Darren: That concludes MWO Dev Vlog #6. Be sure to stay tuned for future vlogs, including more information on the development of Mechwarrior Online, community spotlights, and the exciting future of the MWO competitive scene. And on behalf of Piranha Games and No Guts, No Galaxy, thanks for watching. And until next time, mechwarriors.
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