121 replies to this topic

[The6thMessenger]

I remember a pseudo-mechwarrior game in my childhood -- Heavy Gear 2 -- i swear i remember some girl named Temple.

Weapons such as LAAC, HAAC -- think of uzi with gatling barrels, HVAC, some Plasma Accelerator that has light purple beam that charges briefly, and some automatic shotgun named "slug" gun IIRC. There's buildings in the multiplayer. I can "skate". It was just a really awesome and fleshed out game.

Although i do remember getting lost most of the times, but it's really a cool game. Looking back, weapon switching feels a lot clunky versus group firing like what MWO have.

What about you, you feel like MWO should ditch some modern elements and go back to some of it's roots?

Edited by The6thMessenger, 29 August 2017 - 02:26 AM.

[Hit the Deck]

Yeah, I remember HG2.

Did you by any chance play Battlezone? It offers more tactical play and base building but has more limited customization of your "ride".

[Anjian]

That was the first game I ever played online with. Soon I love playing unlimited threat deathmatches. I still remember some clans there, BR and AKA. Oh yes, and the Chikens. Many of the clans prefer to play CTF with a threat value of only 1000. I like unlimited with my Splitting Cobra or King Cobra, with rails and mortars.

There is also a whole group of Japanese players that come into the game, usually because of the time zones, the Americans are asleep. Their matches are generally set with a threat value of 3000. Compared to 1000, which only lets you use some autogun with a light, 3000 lets you use a heavier mech, which for me is the Desert Viper with a bazooka.

Edited by Anjian, 29 August 2017 - 02:24 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

Hit the Deck, on 29 August 2017 - 02:18 AM, said:

Yeah, I remember HG2.

Did you by any chance play Battlezone? It offers more tactical play and base building but has more limited customization of your "ride".

I wish i did.

I never even played the old mech warriors, just that Heavy Gear 2, which i kept getting lost.

[Bud Crue]

Why do old games look more fun to play?

I don't know...the tinted optics of nostalgia maybe?

Hell, give me a decent version of Zaxon or Civ 2 and I'd probably be happy.

[Savage Wolf]

The6thMessenger, on 29 August 2017 - 02:12 AM, said:

What about you, you feel like MWO should ditch some modern elements and go back to some of it's roots?

Quite opposite. MWO is sorely needing to be brought up to modern times. There is so much old school bagage holding this game back. Either from Battletech itself or the approach it takes to game design. Modern game design is better for a reason. We got alot smarter since then.

[Toothless]

The Earthsiege/Starsiege games were all pretty much great.

[kapusta11]

Because back then you were a kid with no responsibilities and now deep inside you feel guilty for wasting your time playing video games?

[N0ni]

Never got to play Heavy Gear 2, but i did get to play the first one at the same time as Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries (lost it over a decade ago, still have HG somehow).

What i miss the most from older games are the cinematics. Heavy Gear 1 for example between missions it felt like you WERE Ranger Scott on the Vigilance and you could feel the emotion between Scott, Janus, Reeves and Brockton. The immersion was real.

Now the graphics by today's standards are ancient:



But back then i thought those dirt squares were awesome!

Probably my favorite thing even to this day, is "skating" as fast as Reeves' gear with the Snub Cannon (pretty much HG's gauss, 1 hit kill on anything that's not an "assault" class gear, Visigoth tank, landship or Mammoth/Naga).

Favorite gear is still the Black Mamba, so flexible to do most anything while retaining speed (Hunter XMG for Northern equivalent)

[Alistair Winter]

Hit the Deck, on 29 August 2017 - 02:18 AM, said:

Yeah, I remember HG2.

Did you by any chance play Battlezone? It offers more tactical play and base building but has more limited customization of your "ride".

That game was awesome. I was just thinking about this exact game a few days ago. I don't understand why this format was abandoned. I've never seen any other game like it.

[The6thMessenger]

N0ni, on 29 August 2017 - 02:42 AM, said:

Favorite gear is still the Black Mamba, so flexible to do most anything while retaining speed (Hunter XMG for Northern equivalent)

I remember Black Mamba. But honestly i always did liked Black Kodiak -- i remember arming it with four gatling guns on the waist and on the shoulder. And then there was this Uzi with a gatling gun barrel.

it was a blast really. Although i never did finished Tutorial.

[N0ni]

The6thMessenger, on 29 August 2017 - 02:46 AM, said:

But honestly i always did liked Black Kodiak -- i remember arming it with four gatling guns on the waist and on the shoulder. And then there was this Uzi with a gatling gun barrel.

I wished HG1 had that ability to torso mount weapons, one of the things i've always wanted to do is make a carbon copy of Reeves' gear with the HAC, 2 shoulder mounted AGMs and then the two chest mounted LRP/MRP (i forget if he had light rocket packs or medium).

At least you can make Brockton's gear! Much more OP in a duel anyway.

[The6thMessenger]

N0ni, on 29 August 2017 - 02:58 AM, said:

I wished HG1 had that ability to torso mount weapons, one of the things i've always wanted to do is make a carbon copy of Reeves' gear with the HAC, 2 shoulder mounted AGMs and then the two chest mounted LRP/MRP (i forget if he had light rocket packs or medium).

At least you can make Brockton's gear! Much more OP in a duel anyway.

All those gatling guns were moot though. Cause it wasn't group fired like MW, you have to switch. So god damn clunky now that i realized it.

[The Basilisk]

Savage Wolf, on 29 August 2017 - 02:27 AM, said:

Quite opposite. MWO is sorely needing to be brought up to modern times. There is so much old school bagage holding this game back. Either from Battletech itself or the approach it takes to game design. Modern game design is better for a reason. We got alot smarter since then.

Brought to modern times...yes and no.

Mwo needs to be brought to modern times in terms of graphics, physics and all the other fancy shmency possibilitys modern hardware and programming has to offer...as well as modern UI handling to support and realize all the possibilitys and the depht the BT Universe has to offer.

MWO does the oposite.
It forgoes the charm, history and feeling of the old MW and Battletech titles, trying to pretend to be a modern times twitchy, comp style shooter while it completely lacks modern times know how and technology.

Less arcade and casual shooter more Battletech.

[N0ni]

The6thMessenger, on 29 August 2017 - 03:09 AM, said:

All those gatling guns were moot though. Cause it wasn't group fired like MW, you have to switch. So god damn clunky now that i realized it.

Just like having a bunch of different types of weapons in HG1 was moot, since you can only set 3 maximum firing groups. It looked so dumb throwing a hand grenade while shooting an AP grenade launcher... just because you have a separate weapon group for the rifle/laser/railgun/snub cannon/etc and whatever you have on the shoulders (rocket packs/missiles).

Which is why you customize gears, because a stock Kodiak will give you problems.

[Savage Wolf]

The Basilisk, on 29 August 2017 - 03:10 AM, said:

Brought to modern times...yes and no.

Mwo needs to be brought to modern times in terms of graphics, physics and all the other fancy shmency possibilitys modern hardware and programming has to offer...as well as modern UI handling to support and realize all the possibilitys and the depht the BT Universe has to offer.

MWO does the oposite.
It forgoes the charm, history and feeling of the old MW and Battletech titles, trying to pretend to be a modern times twitchy, comp style shooter while it completely lacks modern times know how and technology.

Less arcade and casual shooter more Battletech.

That's all well and all, but that's an entirely different genre and buisiness model requires. MWO is for all intents and purposes an arcade online shooter. You cannot change it into something else without basicly making an entirely different game.

Which they are doing. MW5. It's a single player game so there is actually room for lore and immersion and all that. Trying to force that into MWO will just be a mess. Like we have.

But either of these games need to make use of modern game design principles. Having a game stuck in the past will not attract new players who can't excuse things with nostalgia. We shouldn't be another Heroes of might and magic where the fans deny the franchise to evolve and now is forced to just release the same game over and over.

We have gotten smarter when it comes to make good mechanics since FASA thought up the rules for Battletech. There are other online games with good ideas that we should learn from, not just World Of Tanks. We have better games now. Mechwarrior needs to keep up. Technology and design wise.

[Ghogiel]

I think a lot of the time these days developers artifically drag out what content they do have into boring *** worthless grind mechanics as if people can spend 4hrs gathing some poxy resource to progress in a single area and enjoy it. It's not even and exclusive problem with F2P models games, it's like everything these days. Seemed to me there was much less of this in older games, even rts and rpgs were less grind orientated.

[Kiiyor]

Heavy gear 2 was awesome. I remember thinking that it looked amazing... before spending the majority of every single battle in wireframe mode.

Medium cannons for the win.

[Lily from animove]

One thing is, they were new and a new experience is often exciting. I can't really play diablo like games anymore, feels bland feels boring, yet D2 was just somethign I grinded like hell. Overwatch was the same, too much TF2 arena shooters just made the genre worn out for me.

Another point however is also mechanics. Some older games had better mechanics, more mechanics with sense and depth. This is mostlikely because games were "cheap" to make and it didnt matter if they had many customers. Now games are very expensive to make (especially graphically good ones) and they will need a wide mass of customers, so they need to be designed to make mainstream gamers happy.

Most old games especially RPG's made character creation half the game, and if you failed at that, game over (stuff like baldurs gate or The Dark eye), because the char can't hit sh1t. Strategie games often were REAL hard by default (stuff like KKND2, mayday) while now even the "hard" mode is way below these old regular modes. Nowdays you can often run around rather brainless doing weirdo things and it works. I remember I palyed RAGE when steam made a free weekend, and I completed it and died only 2x. How can games by default be THAT easy at all? Well it's important for sales, because all those easy games give even the most derpy games feelings of "sucess". And thats make them happy, and happy customers are good customers because they spend money.

When games were made for the sake of beeing games they were good at beeing games.
When games were made for the sake of profit, they were good at beeing products but not many were good at beeing games.

Thats also why so many indi titles succeed so well, most of them are games made by games for the sake of making a game.

Alistair Winter, on 29 August 2017 - 02:44 AM, said:

That game was awesome. I was just thinking about this exact game a few days ago. I don't understand why this format was abandoned. I've never seen any other game like it.

theres a remake of it for a reason, because people get tired of the new boring bad games and want old ones back. And when a old game was just good there is no reason to "reinvent" it, just upp it's graphics and it's fine. Because a well deisgned game will just be as much fun as back then.

Edited by Lily from animove, 29 August 2017 - 03:57 AM.

[Savage Wolf]

Lily from animove, on 29 August 2017 - 03:53 AM, said:

One thing is, they were new and a new experience is often exciting. I can't really play diablo like games anymore, feels bland feels boring, yet D2 was just somethign I grinded like hell. Overwatch was the same, too much TF2 arena shooters just made the genre worn out for me.

Another point however is also mechanics. Some older games had better mechanics, more mechanics with sense and depth. This is mostlikely because games were "cheap" to make and it didnt matter if they had many customers. Now games are very expensive to make (especially graphically good ones) and they will need a wide mass of customers, so they need to be designed to make mainstream gamers happy.

Most old games especially RPG's made character creation half the game, and if you failed at that, game over (stuff like baldurs gate or The Dark eye), because the char can't hit sh1t. Strategie games often were REAL hard by default (stuff like KKND2, mayday) while now even the "hard" mode is way below these old regular modes. Nowdays you can often run around rather brainless doing weirdo things and it works. I remember I palyed RAGE when steam made a free weekend, and I completed it and died only 2x. How can games by default be THAT easy at all? Well it's important for sales, because all those easy games give even the most derpy games feelings of "sucess". And thats make them happy, and happy customers are good customers because they spend money.

When games were made for the sake of beeing games they were good at beeing games.
When games were made for the sake of profit, they were good at beeing products but not many were good at beeing games.

Thats also why so many indi titles succeed so well, most of them are games made by games for the sake of making a game.

Games have never been cheaper to make. We have much better tools today and much more power in our machines which means much less cutting corners or optimization needed. That's why today we are flooded with games. Back then you hoped the next RPG was good because otherwise you needed to wait until another was released.
Hell, today, I can release a game. I don't need a publisher.

Many games today are crap. But most games back then were terrible too. This has not changed. But the amount of games is way higher and so the amount of good games are also higher. I know I can't keep up to play them all.

And the old mechanics were not always better. There have been many outcrys for old school games, and with games being cheaper to make now, they have also been made. But most of them have failed. And some might say that they haven't done them right yet, but I think it's more likely they remember things through rosetinted glasses of nostalgia which doesn't work in a new game, even with the same mechanics. Or simply that you and your taste in game has changed. I loved Diablo 2 too, but I'm bored with Diablo 3. But it is the same mechanics, so I can't blame that.