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The Lost Mechwarrior/battletech Games


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#1 Tarl Cabot

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Posted 03 June 2016 - 04:08 PM

MW2 demo. I have that on an old harddrive. Was difficult to get it running at first back in the day.

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Multiplayer BattleTech 3025

This was a Beta released in 2001 by Kesmai. It was an MMORPG, and later in December of that year this poor game was shut down with no explanation whatsoever. The shutdown in 2001 also affected previous Multiplayer BT game: Multiplayer BattleTech Solaris also by Kesmai. BT3025 featured almost the same level of Community Warfare that we have now. It also incorporated many more BT:TT rules than MW.


The explanation is that EA had previously been in an assembly line mode with games, obtaining rights to games then slowly stripping the help away. People were working 70/80hrs weeks, burning out people. In 2001 EA shut down 99% of the game development for non-inhouse games, so EA's MPBT 3025 was one of many games canned by them.

The CW interface was actually a quickly thrown together product when the 3rd party that was contracted to do that part failed to produce.

Just fyi Kesmai started MPBT 3025, aka EGA MPBT in 1991ish on the GEnie network and it ran until 1997. It used the combat engine for the original Mechwarrior with heavy modifications such as prop up the mech with one arm to fire weapons located on the other arm if legged/double legged. For the few mechs with no arms, they could also fire from alternate views with arm mounted weapons with limited range. It did not have as many planets that MWO has, but it also took time for planets to be flipped, even against NPC. NPC pilots ranged from green to elites, depending on what grade of units were garrisoned or traveled to said planet. PVP happened on Solaris though. Actual play time for MOST players were from 6pm-8am, local time. That was called non-prime time and was $6/hr. Prime time (business hours for businesses on GEnie) it was $18/hr. Talk about credit card burn out Posted Image

SVGA MPBT 3025, aka MPBT Solaris, began development in 1994-1995, and went live on AOL gaming network in 1996. New combat engine and starting point at first was just Solaris. Unfortunately the 3rd party developer responsible for Succession Wars part took the money, did not deliver and closed up shop. At the same time AOL was also making changes from an hourly rate to a flat rate for their service while tagging on an hourly rate for the game service, and creating their own game network. From there Kesmai created their own gaming network, Gamestorm. It had Air Warrior, Mythic, Legends of Kesmai, Stellar Emperor, Starship Troopers, Aliens Online, Godzilla Online, Darkness Falls, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.../wiki/GameStorm

MPBT Solaris may not have had its Succession Wars, but it did have chain of command, with House Leaders becoming Kesmai employees during their tenure with NDAs. We developed our own SSW using the Solaris arenas as planets, each dropzone a stepping stage to capturing a planet, every weekend. We were the primary contact as community managers and our job was to keep the community going. We did not always agree on some things, such as changing from no leg/heading to full range combat and we had a House majority sit out the first SSW with that rule change, hosted by House Kurita!!! But that did not keep some of their units from going merc so they could participate.

We had external VOIP but generally we chat by typing Posted Image SSW ended, iirc 1am CST, UNLESS an opponent was on the Capitol (arena 1 of the respective House). Each arena had 4 drop zones. If the enemy was in 4th droproom at the end of the event, they had to win in order for the assaulting House to move forward. Win, a lance drops into 3rd droproom while lance drops again in 4th droproom. If either lance loses, the event is over with. If 3rd lance win but the 4th lance has not completed/ended their game, combat begins in 2nd droproom.

As you can see, in those type of games, delaying the end of the game could be very crucial on what happens next. During the entire time of the SSW, we had a handful of games that went pass the end time. One session did not see the game end until almost 3am CST one morning. And just fyi, that was with only 1 mech per player.

And there were a few times that my girlfriend did some very evil things to let me know what I was missing... Posted Image other times she made sure I was extremely distracted... how can one really concentrate at a time like that!?!?!?

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 03 June 2016 - 04:12 PM.


#2 Tarl Cabot

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Posted 03 June 2016 - 06:00 PM

http://massivelyop.c...yer-battletech/

The EGA version would be pretty close to the original Mechwarrior. The link above has a shot of MW and MPBT EGA. Pic below of the supply lines. Unit mechs were repaired, provided the parts were available. When supply lines were cut, there were plenty of times a mech could not be fully repaired nor re-armed. If you used a personal mech that R&R came out of your pocket.

Posted Image

As for downloads. I know I still have them on an old computer/harddrive.

Posted Image

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 03 June 2016 - 06:02 PM.


#3 VinJade

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Posted 05 June 2016 - 09:05 AM

@Wiz
I never knew about any of those games other than MW 5 so a good find.
I loved MW 1 just wish DOS-box could run it at the correct rate, and I also loved that you could still fight even if your mech didn't have all of its components such as weapon replacements or ammo, also the fact you couldn't change anything on them made them that much more fun to play.

Not to mention if you ignored the story(what little there was) it became endless play and could go wherever you wanted provided you had the C-bills to get there.

Something that all of the other MW games lacked, endless game play, once the story was finished it was game over with very little reason to replay any of the games again besides trying to beat the game with different mechs/units.

only other game that came close to a built in endless game was Battletech CHI with its Arena and free roaming aspect(lets face it there was little story to it).

But now a days if the game lacks anything less than PS 4 style graphics people won't give the game the time of day.

Good example of this was when I was playing BT CHI a roommate took one look at it and goes "That sucks and stupid not worth playing"
but then again he feels the same about anything produced for PS 1.

Sorry didn't mean to go so far off topic Wiz its just when you was talking about the good old days that brought back fond memories and some annoying ones.

Edited by VinJade, 05 June 2016 - 09:06 AM.


#4 Airwind

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Posted 07 June 2016 - 10:22 PM

mechwarrior tactics was foul. selling founder packages and all. then going offline just like that. new age "kickstarter" problems.

#5 Brut4ce

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Posted 07 June 2016 - 10:53 PM

Great Finds Marack. I have been around since Crescent Hawk's inception and those brought back some painful memmories of things that could be great but never came to be :) . As for Mechwarrior 2, its story could be summarised with two words really; Kelly Zmag (For those that are too young to remember also the head of the late IGP). Thank god Activision picked it up and it turned out to be one of the best games of the 90's.

#6 Dar1ng One

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Posted 08 June 2016 - 01:26 AM

View PostMarack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 03 June 2016 - 11:13 AM, said:


And this is all I uncovered of lost BattleTech games.


Man those pics take me back.

Mmmmmmm..... yes

Mech-Cellent!

#7 Horseman

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Posted 03 September 2016 - 01:35 AM

View PostVinJade, on 05 June 2016 - 09:05 AM, said:

I loved MW 1 just wish DOS-box could run it at the correct rate,
It can, but needs to be configured to do so - by default DOSBox is designed to devote as much computing power to emulation as your machine allows, but Mechwarrior and some older games were developed to execute their gameplay loop as fast as the hardware permitted, without any of this pesky "timing" stuff that came later.
The solution is to configure DOSBox to run at a fixed speed ("cycles") - type in these three commandsbefore running the game:
cycles=1000
cycleup=100
cycledown=100
You can increase / decrease the cycle count using CTRL+F11 and CTRL+F12. mpu401 = uart is recommended, as the default setting there can cause the game to crash.

View PostMarack Drock the Unicorn Wizard, on 03 June 2016 - 11:13 AM, said:

This is my tribute thread to the MechWarrior games that never came to be, but should have. Been doing a lot of research and such into this series and it is really sad to see just how troubled this IP has been in the video game market.

(snip)

And this is all I uncovered of lost BattleTech games.

There is one more that was aborted very early into development: Battletech 3 by Mediagenic (Activision and Infocom's parent company). There was only a little mention of it on the now-defunct website belonging to Tony Van ( the producer of Crescent Hawk's Revenge), here's an archived copy:

http://web.archive.o...and_infocom.htm

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I'll never forget my last day at Mediagenic. Mediagenic had been gone bankrupt, and had been bought by a new company. But due to sever money issues and re-orgs, there was another round of layoffs in the beginning of 1992. This layoff was the fourth I'd witnessed in three years, but it was the worst. People were being pulled out of their cubes left and right.


I figured I was safe; I had a hit game and I was working on the design for BattleTech 3, which was really starting to sell! However, Sherry came to my cube, tapped me on the shoulder, and with tears in her eyes brought me to her office to give me my severance package (which Mediagenic ultimately did not honor, BTW!)

I was told I was being let go because they were not going to make any more BattleTech games. Three years later, MechWarrrior 2 was released from Activision (that's another long story) and Westwood released their own RTS called Command and Conquer. Both were top of the charts for years.

Fate is funny sometimes. I had proved in 1991 that both the BattleTech license and the real time strategy genre were moneymakers. But if things worked out and I had stayed at Mediagenic, I would never have gotten my next job nor met the person who would change my life in infinitely better ways.

Edited by Horseman, 03 September 2016 - 01:38 AM.


#8 Mighty Spike

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Posted 03 September 2016 - 03:15 AM

My first Mechwarrior was the Mw title for the snes. Here you can play it and other classic games.
My 2nd MW title was the MW2 Combat arcade Edition for ps1. Still have that ps1 game here, it runs on my old ps2. playing it from time to time. Always searching for classic games . Was born 1973 so as i grow up i had the chance to see the upcoming of Videogames from the start, and how fast Videogames was getting better with graohics/ audio. Was a exciting time.Atari, c64(Yeah writing programms in Basic Posted Image ) and all the other plattforms.The first CD Console. My first CD action game was thunderhawk for the megaa drive cd. Had a cool Soundtrack and for that time a real fast action heli Shooter, loved it.

http://www.vizzed.co...tendo-8161-game

Edited by Mighty Spike, 03 September 2016 - 03:26 AM.


#9 Peace2U

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Posted 03 September 2016 - 06:46 PM

I remember MW1 very well.
Hard to believe it contained a full storyline with a time frame to achieve your goal (clear the family name and destroy the grey death lance), '3D' polygon EGA graphics, character interaction like negotiating a mercanary contract, all the math to calculate things like salvage rights and costs of repair/refit, hiring/firing pilots of various skill levals, and detective work to track down the 'bad guys'.
All this on a 720k low density floppy disk.
Oh and imagine a 1st person '3D' shooter back in 89 - one word - AWSOME.
Ah-h-h the good old days.

I'll grab my walker and step down off of the soap box now, and exit - stage left (back then we didn't have a mike to drop).
Peace All





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