40 replies to this topic

[Mister Blastman]

So lots of people around here may have never seen MechWarrior 2 played online. But you might be wondering... what was it like?

The servers have long since shut down. But Activision built in support for IPX, null modem, modem to modem etc. support. So the long story short--you can still play it online through stuff like Dosbox!

That's great. More on that later. I might even post how if there's enough interest. For now, I'd like to showcase what it really looked like!

The experience. Getting on the server. And then... goodies... In this you'll see some easter eggs... and a few things that are really notable, especially in the second video (labeled pt. 3 on Youtube). The sound is also way better in the second one.

Play these in 1080p fullscreen to get the full retro monitor feel.

WARNING: ONE Urbanmech was harmed in the creation of this video. I am not responsible for any feelings hurt.

First, part one...



And in part two (pt. 3) we have some neat stuff...

1. Custom maps.
2. Custom, user-made 'mechs (3D Model etc.)
3. Custom decals
4. Custom map settings

... and more. See if you can see them. I couldn't showcase all of what made this game special as I need... someone else to play against to show stuff. It's kinda hard running two instances on the same machine.



Edit: This website here has some useful utilities:
http://www.localditc.../downloads.html

However, I use NAIS 2.03 which has more 'mechs... which can be had here:
http://www.sarna.net...2_mercs/extras/

And this one has lots of stuff:
http://www.oocities....pinsky/mods.htm

Install instructions for DOS:
http://www.dosbox.co...S:MechWarrior_2
(for Mercenaries add one more command: "cd dos" BEFORE you type install)

Edit: This should be in Off Topic. Please move there.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 16 May 2015 - 07:02 AM.

[Mercules]

Mister Blastman, on 15 May 2015 - 09:39 AM, said:

So lots of people around here may have never seen MechWarrior 2 played online. But you might be wondering... what was it like?

To sum it up: Awesome for the time... pretty crappy and unbalanced by today's standards.

[Scout Derek]

Awesome Sauce, now we can play with mechs with Jump Jets that let you leap hundreds of meters at a time

[Kristov Kerensky]

Scout Derek, on 15 May 2015 - 10:18 AM, said:

Awesome Sauce, now we can play with mechs with Jump Jets that let you leap hundreds of meters at a time

And have unlimited fuel! They never did fix the JJ bug in MW2.

It was great at the time, which was 20 years ago. Today, it's rather...well...retro isn't exactly the word I'd use, more like ugly.

[Scout Derek]

Kristov Kerensky, on 15 May 2015 - 10:20 AM, said:

And have unlimited fuel! They never did fix the JJ bug in MW2.

It was great at the time, which was 20 years ago. Today, it's rather...well...retro isn't exactly the word I'd use, more like ugly.

We could make a graphics mod

[EvilCow]

Simulation aspects still unparalleled since. Jump jets were very interesting and required skill (but exploitable because some bugs). For some reason you could feel the size of your mech, it felt right. Sounds were mostly great, Betty was the best ever, music was (and still is) awesome. Collisions worked, DFA worked.
Heat was REALLY an issue, stay into red and you could randomly explode, fire 5 CERLL at once and you go boom. Flamers worked, inferno missiles worked too. Mguns were really useful for backup, even just two of them. There were situation where you would prefer to eject ammo because heat.

Single player was the best ever, the variety of missions was incredible: under sea (with special equipment that was there for that single mission), into space on a spaceship boarding another spaceship, asteroid and a full variety of land environments.

Weapons had balance issues, lack of hardpoints made boating an issue, it must be said that the gentlemen agreement was to not mount more that 2 LRM launchers (there was also a limit on inferno missiles) and it was mostly respected.

Graphic is of course outdated but it was a better game compared to ALL its successors in so many aspects.

Edit: It had a QUAD mech, even in multi, the Tarantula.

Edited by EvilCow, 15 May 2015 - 10:57 AM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

EvilCow, it was a great game at the time, and all the toys you mentioned come from the mix of MW2, GBL and MW2:Mercs, not all of which are combined together in any of the games, sadly.

And you do forget the multitude of bugs that plagued all 3 titles, none of which were ever fixed because Activision lost the license and didn't give a surat's furry rear end about fixing those bugs due to that.

BTW, you can find a copy of NetMecht95 and bypass the dosbox, as that was only required for the original MW2 NetMech Demo, which was mucked up 10 ways from Sunday.

[EvilCow]

DOS versions had none of the bugs that plagued the newer releases, those how attempted to add 3D acceleration. The game was stable, I remember just the JJ-related bugs and the bad balance caused by a dumb 1:1 translation of TT values, it was playable because the agreements I mentioned before.

MW2 Mercs pretty much included everything was present in the previous games, except single player maps. It introduced an error in weapons, for some reason medium pulse lasers got double damage.

I think that Netmech DOS was the best overall, it was free too.

[girl on fire]

i can (and do) play MW4 but this game just looks too primitive

[Kristov Kerensky]

Sorry EvilCow, but the NetMech DOS was the NetMech Demo, and it was so mucked up it wasn't funny. It was designed 3 years prior to the release of MechWarrior 2 in 1992, and it was created to deal with 9600 bps as the max, which was funny because 14.4 was the actual max speed at that time, but Activision didn't think enough people would be using the newest modems so they stuck with the lower speed. Many of us worked together to create 'work arounds' for that speed limit on the NetMech Demo and we were able to bump it up to 14.4, which wasn't even close to the 28.8 and 33.6 that most of us were using, but we were limited by the original coding being created when 14.4 was the max possible speed after all. And the NetMech Demo wasn't ever fully completed, hence the Demo name, it was a tech test really, since when it was first created in 1992, online gaming wasn't really a thing, hell it was just starting to be something in 1995, and even that was a limited thing, most people paid by the hour to be online after all.

And the original MW2 DOS release has the exact same bugs as the later 95 version, they didn't even add new bugs, oddly enough. The ATI Rage release did have some odd problems in Windows, mainly the JJ wouldn't recharge, but running the game in a DOS box fixed that issue. There were some odd graphical bugs in the 3dFX Voodoo release, but they were purely graphical, not gameplay.

And, sadly, MW2:Mercs had none of the quads in it, although it did have Battle Suits and Elementals, and you got to use a hovertank in one of the single player missions.

[Mister Blastman]

Kristov Kerensky, on 15 May 2015 - 10:20 AM, said:

And have unlimited fuel! They never did fix the JJ bug in MW2.

It was great at the time, which was 20 years ago. Today, it's rather...well...retro isn't exactly the word I'd use, more like ugly.

I dunno if I'd call it ugly. Art is timeless. I can still go back and play PC games from 1986, Space Quest 1, for example, and still enjoy the graphics. Remember the town on Kerona?



I still love how it looked! The lines and colors are simple but the style was brilliant and really set the tone perfectly.

So while technology may improve, good art is good art, no matter how old or new it is. Stuff like this...



Is gorgeous, imperfections and all. Impressionistic art is fantastic, even if it doesn't capture the miniscule details realistically, it captures the body, soul emotional connection to the scene.

Whereas likewise this piece from the Middle Ages, while absurd and simplistic...



The message "love is blind" still is as true then as it is now.

There are lots of old games that still look great if you consider them not for what they aren't now--but what they were then and tried to represent. Did they convey their purpose, message and connection well?

The old Mechwarrior 2 games still look great in my opinion. And they play even better. They have fantastic depth to their game mechanics.

[EvilCow]

Kristov Kerensky, on 15 May 2015 - 11:48 AM, said:

Sorry EvilCow, but the NetMech DOS was the NetMech Demo, and it was so mucked up it wasn't funny. It was designed 3 years prior to the release of MechWarrior 2 in 1992, and it was created to deal with 9600 bps as the max, which was funny because 14.4 was the actual max speed at that time, but Activision didn't think enough people would be using the newest modems so they stuck with the lower speed.

You must have missed one version, after the NetMech demo you are referring to, they made "NetMech DOS" which supported 8 players over IPX, it was a free download, it just lacked the mechlab, you needed MW2 The Clans for that. It worked very well over Kali, its only defect was the limited set of maps.

This is the one (note the pilot doing a DFA here):

Edited by EvilCow, 15 May 2015 - 12:18 PM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Some people like retro, some don't, as I said, I consider it ugly, you obviously don't.

And art is something everyone has their own opinions on, lets just leave it at that shall we?

EvilCow, I remember the one you refer to now, it was released for those who didn't get the free NetMech95 with MW2 95, which I bought, that's why I forget it. It was better then the original that came with MW2, they updated it to use a real modem! It was actually almost the same as the NetMech95, used the same gui, they just removed it from the game itself and that's why it had limited functions like no Mechlab access, didn't even need to have the game, just the correct mek files

[Will9761]

Thanks for showing this, I have always had a curiosity about what Mercnet was like.

[Ph30nix]

Scout Derek, on 15 May 2015 - 10:18 AM, said:

Awesome Sauce, now we can play with mechs with Jump Jets that let you leap hundreds of meters at a time

Its more fun to equip them in a way that lets you boost your speed to insane levels.... or am i thinking of MW3?

[Kristov Kerensky]

Ph30nix, on 15 May 2015 - 12:27 PM, said:

Its more fun to equip them in a way that lets you boost your speed to insane levels.... or am i thinking of MW3?

Nope, that was MW2's JJ bug.

[EvilCow]

Ph30nix, on 15 May 2015 - 12:27 PM, said:

Its more fun to equip them in a way that lets you boost your speed to insane levels.... or am i thinking of MW3?

You are right, forward thrusting allowed speeds 2X the running speed. I achieved over 300kmh on a forward thrusting Tarantula at normal gravity if I remember well. At low gravity it was crazy.

[Armored Yokai]

My goodness those were some pretty fun times
if MWO gets everything PGI should just wrap everything up and start making campaigns and slap Mechwarrior Remake on it

[EvilCow]

Armored Yokai, on 15 May 2015 - 12:30 PM, said:

My goodness those were some pretty fun times
if MWO gets everything PGI should just wrap everything up and start making campaigns and slap Mechwarrior Remake on it

Different approach MW2 was designed as "Maximum Awesome Game", really pushing the limited HW of the time.

Edited by EvilCow, 15 May 2015 - 12:33 PM.

[Armored Yokai]

EvilCow, on 15 May 2015 - 12:31 PM, said:

Different approach MW2 was designed as "Maximum Awesome Game", really pushing the limited HW of the time.

by everything i mean adding things that were in MW2 at the time and multiple things that are in the battletech universe
i.e melee/knockdown etc
(MWO has a long way to go if it really wants to knock us off our feet just like mw2 did)

Edited by Armored Yokai, 15 May 2015 - 12:39 PM.