42 replies to this topic

[Kaemon]

On the homepage one of the scrolling news flashies is saying summer of 2012 (don't remember seeing that before).

Summer?

Really?

So we're talking August 2012 at the latest, so 9 months.

I assume that's Go Live and not Closed Beta, either we're a lot farther along than it seems (as in the devs are holding quite a bit back) or we're looking at an unrealistic deadline that's going to get pushed back.

The reason I bring this up is that if we need to move it back, move it back now, not 2 months beforehand, MMO's that fail to meet launch dates get crucified in the media/review sites, and not sure there's a worse way to start out than having to push.

To me it seems we're still in a early dev phase (since we just announced the engine, we've only seen art renders of mechs, and still haven't seem any info on the gameplay mechanics/pillars).

Not to send the 'everybody panic' flare up (it might be the beer talking) but for gameplay mechanics, mech rendering, map development, game mode decisions, marketing strategies, QA/Beta testing, gameplay tuning, game performance tuning...starting to get my drift?

You're talking either a fleet of devs (GuildWars2 is around 250+ or so I've heard), or some very elite usage of a medieval flail by the manglement.

Cheebus, ironing out the kinks in the Conquest mode could take 4 months alone, unless we're launching with 4 mechs, 2 maps, and a few weap load outs.....bleah....

(ok that last bit was definitely the beer talking...)

I'm curious what other people feel about the release date.

Edited by Kaemon, 03 December 2011 - 03:22 PM.

[Joanna Conners]

I think they're holding content back. It's perfectly reasonable to assume a lot of the work on the MechWarrior reboot has been/is getting retooled for MWO. The release window is completely realistic to me.

[Epitaph]

A few weeks ago, when I decided to check up on Mechwarrior reboot news only to find the MWO announcement, I was also taken by surprise when I saw the date. To think it was so close after years of nothing just blew my mind.
I'm both excited and worried, for reasons you stated. I would rather wait another year or more to get a really great Mechwarrior game than get a half baked mess thrown upon me. Then again, maybe PRI is doing some kind of weird media blackout voodoo and what we see as "news" (art concepts, etc) is actually stuff that got approved months ago. No idea for sure.

If they decide to do beta and get fans in the debugging / balancing process, I'm sure they'd get more feedback (and well detailed feedback at that) than they asked for, considering the excellent quality of the fan base. (lookin' at you guys )

That said, I have confidence in the dev team. They really seem like fans themselves, so I know they want to release a good game just as much as we want to see one.

[Uncl Munkeh]

Well, all good things....

100 Ton metal things could take longer.

[Alistair Steiner]

I agree with OP, as well as the other posters. I'd rather wait for a good game (and be told within the next month, rather than June/July of 2012, that it's being pushed back), than get a really mediocre one "on time." Granted, with the way F2P works with the constant updating, they could realistically release a bare-bones game and improve it piecemeal, but I don't think that's the best approach. To do agree (or at least hope), that they've got some Star League-era ECM going on and hiding what I hope is a very far along project.

But with the constant updates, the game can change radically from initial release to later iterations (with it never being truly "finished"). My favorite example would be TF2. Take the current version you can play on Steam tonight, and compare it to the vanilla version that's on consoles (since they refuse to support free updates). I mean, it's so vanilla (at least I think), that even a Steam server crash that temporarily makes your loadouts unavailable on the PC won't get you back that far. Back when (again, I think) the Pyro had no airblast, for example. The game is vastly different (and for the sake of a serious argument, let's take out hats (heresy!)) now, with people using drastically different tactics, equipment combinations, etc. The Engie is another good example, since I started playing scant months before the Engineer update, and have an idea of what was, as opposed to the sentry-toting, gun-slinging, baby-sentry birthing being he's become.

Jeez, that went on a lot longer than I intended. Sleep deprivation talking, rather than beer.
So yeah, I see it going three ways:
1) Not nearly as ready as it needs to be for an August release and gets pushed back. Worst-case scenario.
2) Same as above, but released with a bare-bones selection of features, eventually patched in as time progresses. Slightly better scenario, but will cause a lot of serious criticism and disappointments.
3) OR, they're much further along than they're letting on( ), and we'll end up dropped into a nearly-complete Beta when the testing begins, completely overwhelming us and causing our heads to explode.

So yeah, that's what I've got. And now that I'm semi-coherent, I should probably be productive.

[The1WithTheGun]

Remember that the first hints of a new Mechwarrior came a few years ago via the trailer. It's possible they have had the actual game engine working since then. They could be internally testing the game as we speak.

Also consider that everything besides the engine is practically already laid out for them; the setting, factions, mech designs, world events, etc.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that they could very well be much further along than they have revealed.

As for the lack of actual info - there are 2 big mistakes that most MMO developers should avoid making:

1) Putting out too much info too fast. You want to leak it out gradually to maintain intrest in the game, to keep the forums and community active.

2) You don't want to start talking about "feature x" when oops - it looks like "feature x" won't make it in the game at launch (or if it doesn't work, maybe ever). It's a good idea to keep the specifics about something in the game quiet until you are pretty sure it will actually work as advertised.

So, no need to panic....yet.

[Epitaph]

The1WithTheGun, on 02 December 2011 - 09:27 PM, said:

....a few years ago via the trailer. It's possible they have had the actual game engine working since then....

IIRC that trailer was made with Unreal Engine 3, so since they switched to CryEngine 3 I'm not entirely sure how much carried over. They did mention they hadn't worked on it up until they signed a deal for MWO, but maybe if they went to work immediately afterwards they could have a lot of the game already.

As for the barebones idea, I wouldn't mind it.... but the whole offset timeline thing throws a wrench in there. I mean TF2 took a looong time to come the way it has. Suppose 3050 swings by and they aren't ready to introduce the Clans proper yet, so they have to throw in some kind of substitute or worse- not at all.

Let's see what happens though.

[Agasutin]

I'm leaning towards that there will be a CBT just around the corner...

[WerewolfX]

entirely reasonable release window crytek 3 is like programming for the Dreamcast so much fun it should be illegal and simplistic too. Plus when you have a full tilt team of modellers programmers and a badass artist at work 9 months is plausible with content introduced regularly. After all look at MW:LL each time a new version ships it's like the heyday of MW4 veng so many full servers it was like a smorgasboard of destruction. I anticipate what's going on behind the scenes I'd like even more to see a gameplay vid but, I've waited this long like the rest of the community I can wait a little longer.

[Thorn Hallis]

Kaemon, on 02 December 2011 - 07:39 PM, said:

The reason I bring this up is that if we need to move it back, move it back now, not 2 months beforehand, MMO's that fail to meet launch dates get crucified in the media/review sites, and not sure there's a worse way to start out than having to push.

Who cares? All those peeps who want to play MWO are allready here.

[Agasutin]

Thorn Hallis, on 03 December 2011 - 04:54 AM, said:

Who cares? All those peeps who want to play MWO are allready here.

Not entirely true, while there is a strong fan base that follow this game religiously, there are more and more newer players coming in that lack the patience of the die-hard fans.

[Kaemon]

Thorn Hallis, on 03 December 2011 - 04:54 AM, said:

Who cares? All those peeps who want to play MWO are allready here.

Because this game needs new players, the BT universe deserves new players, the 10K or so that are already here aren't going to cut it.

To see MWO get slammed on the review sites would suck, getting a half assed game that was rushed out the door would suck even more.

[Kargush]

Could be a bit like Games-Workshop's White Dwarf magazine. Made 3 months prior to shipping out. So the "news" are actually old news. And there is a lot in the pipelines that no-one knows about.

[Bogusheadbox]

actually, it all depends on the core release. i am sure that the core will be small compared to what they have planned. If all content was released on the release date then what do we have to entice us to keep going (apart from the typical level grind).

Edited by Bogusheadbox, 03 December 2011 - 08:25 AM.

[GuntherK]

I am also worried abou the time schedule but there are some factors that should be considered.

1-Piranha already stated that a lenghty pre preoduction cycle has taken place since the Mechwarrior reboot anouncement.

2- Piranha will not develop a new game engine, they will use Cry engine 3, they saved months of developing time and got a very eficient engine to work with.

3- Piranha apears to be very eficient in working in a tight schedule in multi platform launches. They did stuff as diverse as games in the Transformers, Need For Speed or Duke Nukem, franchises. They have experience and organisational skills.

4-MWO will be launched only on PC, they save time by not having to worry about console ports.

5-MWO wont have single player PVE at launch, AAA titles usualy spend lots of development time on single player campaigns and cinematic intros.

6-MWO will be f2play, so they can continue to introduce new content over time, they just need to have gameplay mechanics and some content ready and polished at launch day.

I am confident, especialy when they recruited people like Alex Iglesias and Randall N. Bills.
Those gentleman certainly know their mechs well, you can see on Alex work he has passion for the Battletech universe, and Randall has been involved in Battletech since FASA.

[Reod]

Check whole forum guys , its full of post peoples that have in mind Mechwarrior MMO... they cant face simple truth mechwarrior online will be league of legends/world of tanks style game to attract millions new players ...it will not be game that most of posters here imagine - their wishlist are really silly.And in my oppinion thats really good(that it will be wot/lol style game), because i want to battletech/mechwarrior franchise prosper , untill now it was niche franchise slowly being forgoten by gaming world (i mean new generations of players ).

World of tanks/league of legends style game's dont have long development time. so i have hope.But i would love to see progress aka some ingame screenies/movies or new trailers

Edited by Reod, 03 December 2011 - 08:40 AM.

[TheUncle]

Quote

[PAUL] The game has been in development for a short period of time following a fairly lengthy pre-production cycle. That being said, our internal engineering team is burning through code faster than words can describe.

In the Dev FAQ Paul confirmed they only started working on it for a short time.
That might be worrying, and personally I think we will play Open Betas by then, not the "full release".

Quote

[MATT N] 2762.5 , Not Alpha Yet

Matt said they are not alpha yet. Alpha marks the milestone where no more new ideas and mechanics are intruduced to the game.
Piranha has 50+ employees. Still, I don't think they really have a whole lot of content to show and if so - it's probably not good looking enough ingame yet to show anything. (though I'd love to see anything ingame whatever its status)
Content wise we really can't expect them to have anything but ideas and concept art plus some 3d models.

That said, building a multiplayer only title for a team of this size should very much be possible in 1 year. For sure there is not going to be an endless amount of mechs at launch, many maps will be missing as well as some mechanics, but a playable, goodlooking game with few levels? They should be able to pull that off.

Edited by TheUncle, 03 December 2011 - 08:49 AM.

[Agasutin]

I've got high hopes for this game, it's been a while since I've played a game that could keep my interest for longer than a week.

[CoffiNail]

They will deliver, ohh trust me they will deliver. We will all be in shock and awe.

[TheUncle]

Bryan Eckman just posted that on twitter

Quote

Signed up for an account, logged in, downloaded installer, patched game, launched game client, played a 1v1 game!

sounds good to me