73 replies to this topic

[Tarogato]

Ted Wayz, on 02 July 2016 - 05:30 PM, said:

Sometimes when people can't do something they play it off like it is a joke. Be better if they were just honest and say it is something way out of their league.

Guess I will never see the Scorpion LAM in MWO.

Scorpion LAM was a failure in lore, and LAMs are so ridiculously far beyond the scope of MWO, why would you even hope for it?

[Garfuncle]

With the reintroduction of inverse kinematics I honestly don't see the huge technological hurdle people think exists with quad mechs.Give the upper half of the mech a turret system for torso twist and have the front legs count as arms that when destroyed would kill the mech. Until PGI expressly states why they would not work in their engine then people will continue to have interests in quads.

Like I said, its bad business to shut down possible sales with no reasonable reason given outside of "they're circus mechs."

[Davers]

Tarogato, on 02 July 2016 - 05:53 PM, said:

Scorpion LAM was a failure in lore, and LAMs are so ridiculously far beyond the scope of MWO, why would you even hope for it?

Because people don't want to accept that this game is as good as it's going to get?

[ice trey]

There are only two quad mechs in existence at this point in the lore of Battletech. The Scorpion, and the Goliath. Later, we see the Tarantula, and that's the last quad we see until 3060. Most of the clan quads are second-liners for the homeworld clans, like the stalking spider... so we wouldn't see them, either.

I don't dislike quads in tabletop Battletech. In fact, I think that the Scorpion is a pretty dandy little machine that I wish I had more minis of. However, programming it into MWO sounds like a nightmare, and what is more, you'd have to have a whole separate control scheme for exactly two mechs.

There are a few vocal players that want the quads in the game, and while I don't discredit their wanting quads in the game, I do say it's an unrealistic expectation. There was exactly one and only one instance of a quad mech in a Mechwarrior game - Mechwarrior 2 with an AI controlled Tarantula - but that wasn't even playable without cheat codes, and only in instant action. Even back then, expectations for game physics weren't quite so high.

The only way to make programming quads into the game viable would be to invent a bunch of quad designs and incorporate them into the game, but for me, "Inventing" designs and sticking them into a time period in the lore that has already been well established is a way, WAY bigger game-dev sin. At least when MW4 was pulling that schitt, they had set the game in the not-yet-established Fedcom Civil War period, and those designs ended up incorporated into the Tabletop lore that was being established alongside it. Doing that to established canon would just be a giant double-middle-finger-while-backing-out-of-the-room to every fan of the Battletech franchise.

[Garfuncle]

Would they need their own control scheme? They could simply omit side-stepping for another perk such as 360 turso/turret rotation. The technological hurdle lies within animating the four legs. I would like to know why that would be a problem in the game engine.

[Tarogato]

ice trey, on 02 July 2016 - 06:11 PM, said:

There are only two quad mechs in existence at this point in the lore of Battletech. The Scorpion, and the Goliath. Later, we see the Tarantula, and that's the last quad we see until 3060. Most of the clan quads are second-liners for the homeworld clans, like the stalking spider... so we wouldn't see them, either.

I don't dislike quads in tabletop Battletech. In fact, I think that the Scorpion is a pretty dandy little machine that I wish I had more minis of. However, programming it into MWO sounds like a nightmare, and what is more, you'd have to have a whole separate control scheme for exactly two mechs.

Actually, at least seven quad mechs are in timeline. I haven't checked that all of them are MWO viable, though (enough variants, equipment, etc)

Up to 3060:

2570 - Scorpion (IS 55 tons)
2579 - Xanthos (IS 100 tons)
2652 - Goliath (IS 80 tons)
2850 - Thunder Stallion (clan 85 tons)
2852 - Fire Scorpion (clan 65 tons)
3015 - Snow Fox (clan 20 tons)
3054 - Tarantula (IS 25 tons)
3058 - Barghest (IS 70 tons)
3059 - Stalking Spider (clan 50 tons)
3060 - Bishamon (IS 45 tons)
3060 - Sirocco (IS 95 tons)

[Impyrium]

And, just like that Blizzard legacy server crap, there's more to it than "We just don't want to". Russ is a studio president, not a developer- he really doesn't have the technical knowledge to say it as it is.

Quad mechs would be a nightmare and a half to implement. As in, completely redoing everything about mech control in this game, adding support for an entire new system of mechs, potentially breaking a hellava lot in the process, redoing all the UI, animation systems.... If you think it wouldn't be a huge challenge and that IK has anything to do with it, then you probably don't know as much as you might wish. No offense.

I wouldn't mind seeing them, although I've always thought they look pretty derpy. But people just keep on forgetting what's usually behind something that otherwise might seem simple.

[Pyrocolonic]

TL;DR version

[ShoeKush]

Ted Wayz, on 02 July 2016 - 05:30 PM, said:

Sometimes when people can't do something they play it off like it is a joke. Be better if they were just honest and say it is something way out of their league.

Guess I will never see the Scorpion LAM in MWO.

Davers, on 02 July 2016 - 03:03 PM, said:

I think Russ' opinion is based in the fact that they would have to completely rewrite the code for how mechs work to implement quads. Easier to just disparage them so no one wants them. Kind of like how he did with LAMs.

Complete and utter tripe to tell the developer, who only licensed the crysis engine, that they should "completely rewrite the code". What do you do, pay his salary? Do you even know what you are asking? I'm starting to think this is the most derisive community I've ever seen.

Edited by ShoeKush, 02 July 2016 - 09:38 PM.

[Davers]

ShoeKush, on 02 July 2016 - 09:33 PM, said:

Complete and utter tripe to tell the developer, who only licensed the crysis engine, that they should "completely rewrite the code". What do you do, pay his salary? Do you even know what you are asking? I'm starting to think this is the most derisive community I've ever seen.

Ummm...actually we do pay his salary.

[Snowbluff]

It's a **** idea but the people don't like the Dev so when he says it's a **** idea that means it must be a good one. SMH

[ShoeKush]

Davers, on 02 July 2016 - 10:17 PM, said:

Ummm...actually we do pay his salary.

No need for the extended um. Especially when you're wrong.

They produce more than one game. One of which is "Duke Nukem Forever" which is far more popular than you were in Highschool, or could ever have hoped to be. That, along with their other titles, of which they have eight all on multiple platforms with better income than what MWOnline generates. That's not even half the story, the other half goes with sponsorships, promotions, tournaments, etc.

So no you do not pay his salary, be lucky he updates the game at all for all the crap this community talks.

Edited by ShoeKush, 02 July 2016 - 10:47 PM.

[Appogee]

Tarogato, on 02 July 2016 - 04:25 PM, said:

Also, the legs wouldn't fly around in mid-air on hillsides. PGI is reintroducing inverse kinematics soon, which is the feature that allows for mechs to align their feet to terrain.

Feet. Not legs.

[Juodas Varnas]

Quadruped movement (if we went for turret-less, but able to strafe) would, most likely, be able to make use of original crysis code for character movement.
Heck, it could even use the same control scheme. WASD for movement, forward-back and side to side with the mouse for the controlling of direction. I really doubt coding would be a problem (unless PGI is truly as incompetent as some of the "black knights" make them out to be, which might be the case, i do not know).

With the current "timeline" concept, Russ stated that any mech that is using current-tech is fair-game, so there are many more Quadruped mechs available than just the Scorpion and Goliath. Included multiple Clan mechs (some of which are pretty cool, to be honest). Even though most of them are "second line battlemechs" that shouldn't be a factor AT ALL, since we have the god damn IICs, which ARE SECOND LINE BATTLEMECHS, even the bloody KODIAK IS A SECOND LINE BATTLEMECH.

Next argument was something about hitboxes and model size? You seem to forget that we're using their new "volumetric scaling" according to which the quadrupeds would most definitely be significantly smaller than their bipedal counterparts. Especially since a lot of them have... Rather boxy and voluminous torsos (like the Catapult), which would lend well to their size being much smaller than average mech of the weight class. In addition, vast majority of quadrupeds have weapons mounted at cockpit level or higher (even though in TT it didn't make much difference), which would be again, very advantageous in the vast majority of maps in the game.

One of the "main" reasons, why the quadrupeds "we're never going to be added" was always the whole "they'd look bad without Inverse Kinematics", however we're getting IK back in a few weeks.
It seems that the only reason we're not getting the quadrupeds is not because they'd be "bad" (we have a lot of really bad mechs in the game that PGI seems to not show any willingness to fix and prefer to keep them bad), but either because of some "personal vendetta from Russ" (which is a hilarious thought to be honest) or good old fashioned incompetence.

Edited by Juodas Varnas, 02 July 2016 - 11:11 PM.

[YueFei]

ShoeKush, on 02 July 2016 - 10:41 PM, said:

No need for the extended um. Especially when you're wrong.

They produce more than one game. One of which is "Duke Nukem Forever" which is far more popular than you were in Highschool, or could ever have hoped to be. That, along with their other titles, of which they have eight all on multiple platforms with better income than what MWOnline generates. That's not even half the story, the other half goes with sponsorships, promotions, tournaments, etc.

So no you do not pay his salary, be lucky he updates the game at all for all the crap this community talks.

"You want to have a say in how your government operates, in who represents you? Come on don't be ridiculous, the taxes you pay are an insignificant contribution, so you should get no representation, and you shouldn't even be allowed to petition the government!"

[Tarogato]

Appogee, on 02 July 2016 - 11:05 PM, said:

Feet. Not legs.

Actually, the whole legs. Not just feet.








as opposed to:

[ShoeKush]

Juodas Varnas, on 02 July 2016 - 11:08 PM, said:

Quadruped movement (if we went for turret-less, but able to strafe) would, most likely, be able to make use of original crysis code for character movement.
Heck, it could even use the same control scheme. WASD for movement, forward-back and side to side with the mouse for the controlling of direction. I really doubt coding would be a problem (unless PGI is truly as incompetent as some of the "black knights" make them out to be, which might be the case, i do not know).

"Oh I think it would work," does not generate code magically. Sit down. You know nothing of how games are made. I know people that have considered employment at PGI, now currently employed at Bethesda. We talk enough that I, with my little knowledge, think you are nuts. (I only did sound design for the original Day of Defeat, and mapping for the Gloom mod in Quake 2, as well as texture design for Gloom mod for Doom 3, with it's fancy normal maps, and more recently over 50+ completely original textures for planes in IL-2 Sturmovik. Also wrote some official fan fiction for Eve Online and worked as a community manager and member of Polaris. Oh, and while I'm completing this aside, I've also worked as a paid reviewer of games for Gamer's Hell and other online publications.)

I have a bit of vetted knowledge on these things. None of you seem to.

YueFei, on 02 July 2016 - 11:10 PM, said:

"You want to have a say in how your government operates, in who represents you? Come on don't be ridiculous, the taxes you pay are an insignificant contribution, so you should get no representation, and you shouldn't even be allowed to petition the government!"

This is not a democracy. You have as much ownership of Mechwarrior as you do the movie theater that shows you the movie, or the Casino that you gamble at.

Edited by ShoeKush, 03 July 2016 - 12:20 AM.

[Helene de Montfort]

Appogee, on 02 July 2016 - 01:59 PM, said:

Quad Mechs would be hugely uncompetitive - huge hitboxes.

And how many players actually want them... a half dozen at best?

It's well past time you let the matter drop and find something more useful to ask for.

How about you ask for VTOLs... the game engine can handle them, they'd have a role to play on the size of maps we're playing, and MW:LL showed how fun they can be.

We already heard that about Urbanmechs... And guess what? Urbie is awesome!!!! So go enjoy your competitive mechs and leave us ask for something you obviously have never heard about.... FUN!

[B L O O D W I T C H]

I don't get why people want to play oversized turrets.

[Ex Atlas Overlord]

Garfuncle, on 02 July 2016 - 01:39 PM, said:

If a consumer wants something, is vocal enough saying that they will gladly pay for it, then it's in the company's best interest to at least look into providing that product to a potential customer.

I want to pay for gold ammo.

So they should consider adding it right?