20517 replies to this topic

[MeiSooHaityu]

Odanan, on 05 November 2018 - 12:21 PM, said:

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

From the latest FAQ/News:

Bummer.

Maybe what I said earlier wasn't too far off . We will have to see.

MeiSooHaityu, on 29 October 2018 - 04:56 AM, said:

Odanan, on 29 October 2018 - 04:52 AM, said:

3 days!!!

Will we get a Wasp/Stinger combo? Or even Wasp/Valkyrie?

Wouldn't that be nice.

I wonder if it would just pop up like that, or would PGI wait until MechCon to make an announcement like that?

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 05 November 2018 - 12:30 PM.

[Sereglach]

Odanan, on 05 November 2018 - 12:21 PM, said:

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

From the latest FAQ/News:

That's . . . unnerving. PGI's NEVER been one to skip on the mech packs. Mech packs ARE their primary funding model. To me, it implies one of two things, and sadly they're two opposite extremes. Either (1) their company is healthy enough to skip the mech and not sweat it while saving for a big Mech Con announcement, or (2) they're in an unhealthy state and need to push all resources possible onto MW5 to try to make deadlines and save their company.

The first feels somewhat unlikely, since they didn't win anything monetary in the lawsuit, just made HG surrender; and that was a huge 18 month+ financial drain on the company. Also, player count is down and -if the forums are any indication- sales have been down. There hasn't been a lot to be excited about recently.

However, since they just did the Warhammer IIC, if they're using Mech Con for multiple mech announcements (Hey, here's our "traditional" in-house mech announcement AND a swanky MW5 preorder pack with future MWO chassis access), where one is a classic chassis, then that could be what they've got up their sleeve. After all, note that the FAQ only covers the release schedule up to the Warhammer IIC . . . they don't touch anything about Mech Con announcements.

On the other hand, devoting everything they've got to get MW5 out the door as early in 2019 as possible, and using what little dev time they have through November and December to try and make that happen, seems likely. MW5 is the cash cow they've obviously been gambling on for the past year or so. I absolutely expect, no matter what, some kind of MW5 pre-order announcement for Mech Con, but whether or not that'd involve the "missing November mech" or not is up in the air.

Just theorizing. It'll obviously all become clear by Mech Con.

[TheArisen]

Sereglach, on 05 November 2018 - 03:27 PM, said:

That's . . . unnerving. PGI's NEVER been one to skip on the mech packs. Mech packs ARE their primary funding model. To me, it implies one of two things, and sadly they're two opposite extremes. Either (1) their company is healthy enough to skip the mech and not sweat it while saving for a big Mech Con announcement, or (2) they're in an unhealthy state and need to push all resources possible onto MW5 to try to make deadlines and save their company.

The first feels somewhat unlikely, since they didn't win anything monetary in the lawsuit, just made HG surrender; and that was a huge 18 month+ financial drain on the company. Also, player count is down and -if the forums are any indication- sales have been down. There hasn't been a lot to be excited about recently.

However, since they just did the Warhammer IIC, if they're using Mech Con for multiple mech announcements (Hey, here's our "traditional" in-house mech announcement AND a swanky MW5 preorder pack with future MWO chassis access), where one is a classic chassis, then that could be what they've got up their sleeve. After all, note that the FAQ only covers the release schedule up to the Warhammer IIC . . . they don't touch anything about Mech Con announcements.

On the other hand, devoting everything they've got to get MW5 out the door as early in 2019 as possible, and using what little dev time they have through November and December to try and make that happen, seems likely. MW5 is the cash cow they've obviously been gambling on for the past year or so. I absolutely expect, no matter what, some kind of MW5 pre-order announcement for Mech Con, but whether or not that'd involve the "missing November mech" or not is up in the air.

Just theorizing. It'll obviously all become clear by Mech Con.

I saw it more as backlog as they doubled up on the Charger/Hatamoto and might be gearing up for an extra large announcement at mech con.

[Sereglach]

TheArisen, on 05 November 2018 - 06:47 PM, said:

I saw it more as backlog as they doubled up on the Charger/Hatamoto and might be gearing up for an extra large announcement at mech con.

I had thought about that, but the Charger and Hatamoto share so many assets that I just couldn't justify it in my mind, let alone development timeframes. It doesn't add up as a big enough culprit on its own, especially when those assets should already be nearly complete. According to what PGI has said in the past, patch content (non-hotfixes) needs to be finalized no less than two weeks out . . . which would mean by November patch the December build should already be in QA . . . especially with the holiday season and restricted developer time.

I'm not saying it couldn't be the case, but that's why it just doesn't seem like it to me.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Odanan, on 05 November 2018 - 10:31 AM, said:

Imagine that PGI would release only more 6 new mechs, 3 for the Clans, 3 for the IS. Which mechs would you want to see in MWO?

Clan is easy;
- Fire Falcon
- Crimson Langur
- Black Python

IS depends on if they get OmniMechs or not

Yes;
- Raptor
- Men Shen
- Black Hawk-KU

No;
- Brigand / Nexus (fill the same role of jumping 25 tonner with possible ECM)
- Komodo
- Dragon Fire

No Assault 'mechs on my list, I think we've fallen out

[Virlutris]

I wonder if the MechCon mech announcement's going to be Unseen hype, or a PGI homebrew mech.

Or, something ... else?

[Rekkon]

Sereglach, on 05 November 2018 - 11:14 PM, said:

I had thought about that, but the Charger and Hatamoto share so many assets that I just couldn't justify it in my mind, let alone development timeframes. It doesn't add up as a big enough culprit on its own, especially when those assets should already be nearly complete. According to what PGI has said in the past, patch content (non-hotfixes) needs to be finalized no less than two weeks out . . . which would mean by November patch the December build should already be in QA . . . especially with the holiday season and restricted developer time.

I'm not saying it couldn't be the case, but that's why it just doesn't seem like it to me.

Even with the asset sharing, the Charger/Hatamoto pack is eight base variants compared to the normal six (or ten vs. seven if you are the art team). With the model differences, it is probably closer to a pack-and-a-half worth of work than a single mech pack. Then add putting on a big convention...

As for imagining:
Fire Moth
Fire Falcon
Turkina or Stone Rhino

Wasp/Stinger
Mongoose or Raptor
Crusader

Edited by Rekkon, 27 November 2018 - 01:09 PM.

[Grus]

STONE RHINO!!!

[Odanan]

Virlutris, on 27 November 2018 - 12:19 PM, said:

I wonder if the MechCon mech announcement's going to be Unseen hype, or a PGI homebrew mech.

Or, something ... else?

No idea. I hope it's a pack with more than one mech.

For IS, I really want to see soon the Wasp (even better, in a dual pack with the Stinger) and the Crusader.

And, they really should start the MW5 preorder.

Heck, why not starting giving a new Unseen pack (Wasp, Crusader and Logbow) as a bonus for the MW5 preorder?

[Chiasson Brinker]

Karl Streiger, on 05 November 2018 - 11:54 AM, said:

Clowns:
Pulverizer (because they need a stylish Assault that is not vanilla)
Stooping Hawk - I love to hate this guy - horror at the table pure zombie
Skin Walker - because this is near the absolute maximum you can get... and you have BattleArmor Cockpit

IS is hard simple for the reason that the community wanted so many shite mech (Urgsl, Thanatussi, Holepawn)
Legacy
Lao Hu
Crusader (but please modernized versions

We already have the Skinwalker, and it's called the Stormcrow. Sans the interface cockpit, we already have the hardpoints to do most of its configurations.

[Shadowomega1]

Aidan Kell, on 27 November 2018 - 05:38 PM, said:

We already have the Skinwalker, and it's called the Stormcrow. Sans the interface cockpit, we already have the hardpoints to do most of its configurations.

Actually Skinwalker has more space from what I read on sarna, as it has no Gyro MWO coding likely won't support it.

[Sereglach]

Rekkon, on 27 November 2018 - 12:44 PM, said:

Even with the asset sharing, the Charger/Hatamoto pack is eight base variants compared to the normal six (or ten vs. seven if you are the art team). With the model differences, it is probably closer to a pack-and-a-half worth of work than a single mech pack. Then add putting on a big convention...

Variants don't add much to development time. They've shown in the past how they make the modular weapon systems and model the hardpoint combinations; and with their modular weapons' "dynamic geometry" makes that portion of the mech-making much easier. It's all done at once with every combination for every variant into one file/model. Adding variants, later on, that have hardpoints where none were before -or of a new kind (like the missile Urbie)- is the only way new/extra/additional development time is really added. Even that isn't hard, so much as it is just tedious, because apparently they have to remake/rebuild the whole file, again, with all of the new combos and camo schemes . . . which is why it's taking so long to get all the new weapon models onto the old mechs.

For Reference, see the image and discussion of the Dragon in this article: https://mwomercs.com...une-july-august

I'll partly concede the convention, but that has virtually nothing to do with mech development teams. Even if they're putting together some kind of an art crunch for Mech Con, as I said before, those two mechs should have been almost completely done and ready by early November, in order to make QA deadlines before patch builds with the holidays and crunched patch schedule. After all, the December patch is only on the 11th; and they've said content for a patch needs to be finalized at least two full business weeks . . . not in art QA or anything like that . . . finalized for test builds, overall patch QA, and readied for release. That'd give them a reasonably solid month of art crunch time for Mech Con.

Mech Con 2018 planning started within a week after Mech Con 2017 ended . . . that's just how those things work. Most venues for conventions like that need to be reserved 6-9 months out, and discussions to set up those reservations started at least 2 months before the deadline. They're not crunched within the last few months, it's steady over most of the year. That really shouldn't be eating a lot of bandwidth unless they've got some kind of super-special-mega-announcement coming . . . and needed a lot of art work for it (in order to impact the Mech Art Team).

I still like to think they've got some big announcement(s) for Mech Con, but they're mostly crunching as hard as they can to get MW5 out the door as early in 2019 as possible. The pipe-dream would be an engine migration for MWO with serious gameplay updates, in order to make MWO match up with MW5's tech . . . but . . . yeah . . . pipe-dream.

[Karl Streiger]

Aidan Kell, on 27 November 2018 - 05:38 PM, said:

We already have the Skinwalker, and it's called the Stormcrow. Sans the interface cockpit, we already have the hardpoints to do most of its configurations.

20% more armor?
50% damage for SRMs
and invulerability facing Cluster ammunition
plus to fight on as BattleArmor

[TheArisen]

Anyone wanna see some great mech art? Come check out the Lightray thread.
https://mwomercs.com...support-thread/

[Scout Derek]

TheArisen, on 28 November 2018 - 05:49 PM, said:

Anyone wanna see some great mech art? Come check out the Lightray thread.
https://mwomercs.com...support-thread/

reminds me of what would happen if you ripped off a Annihilator Cockpit and repurposed it to fit the Mad Cat MKIV.

[TheArisen]

Scout Derek, on 28 November 2018 - 05:58 PM, said:

reminds me of what would happen if you ripped off a Annihilator Cockpit and repurposed it to fit the Mad Cat MKIV.

Hmm I don't really see the Mad Cat as much but I do see the Anni's periscope head.

[Odanan]

It's already 2 days for MechCon!

[Odanan]

PGI made, it looks like...


Is that a single mech? ('cause it looks like a Thunderbolt growing out of another Thunderbolt)

[CycKath]

Yeah

[Pariah Devalis]

Clearer picture.



That looks like a turbocharger to me. If that's the case, that could also be a plasma cannon. Which means... tech jump?!

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 01 December 2018 - 03:48 PM.