121 replies to this topic

[STEF_]

I think I'm the black sheep here.....

Never ever liked HG/HG2.....so foe me it's a bad example about how much better old games were.

Best game ever? MW2 of course!

[Appogee]

Most games developers focus inordinately on their ability to create ever more realistic graphics, instead of the aspects of game design that make games inherently fun.

Plus, it's much easier to hire artists and create ever more detailed models and textures, than it is to come up with genuinely interesting game mechanics.

That's why so many games these days are effectively 'cookie cutter' reworks of the same basic concepts.

Edited by Appogee, 29 August 2017 - 04:41 AM.

[qS Sachiel]

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

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?

Degrassi Junior High Temple?
Lt Col. Antoinne Milleau

mech commander (MCG) & expansion were also amazing

oh yeah, heavy gear 2 is a gem. Still works on win7.
Heavy gear 1 however ...

I still remember heavy gear 1 fondly. was maybe 8-10 years old?
they won't kill us they took us prisoners, the convention: he dead
come over here, i've got a message for you : he dead.

good times.

Edited by qS Sachiel, 29 August 2017 - 05:10 AM.

[Lily from animove]

Savage Wolf, on 29 August 2017 - 04:06 AM, said:

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.

sorry but this is not true, games back then were much cheaper to make, often even a single person made them in it's freetime next to the job. Yes we have a lot of tools now doing SOME of the work but those tools are often another reason for games beeing bad as hitting the limits of these tools often means limiting the games possibiities as many do not know how to extend a engine or whatever is needed past that tool. also, today you need way more specialised and expensive stuff for all the sound, level design and graphic compared to back then.

And I also disagree with the remake of games beeing cheaper. Most of them are higher. And thats not just inflation that pushes up the price. I eman think about why some games exceed 200 million budget, surely not because of those "cheap tools" available. Also look if they were adjusted, homeworld remastered was kinda sad for me because the old homeworld mechanics were not entirely taken over which changed definately a lot about the mechanics of that game.
Then theres games like Wonderboy 3 which is exactly the original game except new graphics. In fact they even made it possibel to swap to original graphics. So that game is exactly as amazing as before.

Edited by Lily from animove, 29 August 2017 - 04:58 AM.

[Savage Wolf]

Lily from animove, on 29 August 2017 - 04:54 AM, said:

Sorry but this is not true, games back then were much cheaper to make, often even a single person made them in it's freetime next to the job. Yes we have a lot of tools now doing SOME of the work but those tools are often another reason for games beeing bad as hitting the limits of these tools often means limiting the games possibiities as many do not know how to extend a engine or whatever is needed past that tool. also, today you need way more specialised and expensive stuff for all the sound, level design and graphic compared to back then.

Modern tools are so easy to extend and build upon. Back then you required knowledge of how to build your own engine. Now there are several free engine vastly superior to those engines back then. You can focus on making a game and not needing to worry about driver conflicts and input devices. The first reusable engines were limiting, yes. But as of 2017, they are probably better than most custom made engines.

[Alan Davion]

Kiiyor, on 29 August 2017 - 03:46 AM, said:

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.

You're thinking of Heavy Gear 1 actually, which was built on the same engine as Mechwarrior 2/Mercenaries. Those games had the wire frame "image enhancement" mode, just like HG1 did. That came in really handy in mission 4 I believe it was, when you had to escape from the GREL camp in a bone stock hunter.

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

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?

You would be thinking of Sous-Caporal Morgausa Temple, she pilots the Dark Cheetah type Gear if I remember correctly, and I think you mean "Particle" Accelerator, not Plasma, and I believe you're referring to the "Snub Cannon", which as has been pointed out is basically the Heavy Gear version of the Gauss Rifle from Battletech, except in reverse. The Snub Cannon is a close range weapon, and suffers a heavy penalty at long range, unlike the Gauss Rifle which is a long range weapon, and suffers a penalty at close range.

And by HVAC do you mean the "Heavy" Autocannon, or the "Very Heavy" Autocannon? The "Heavy" Autocannon is abbreviated HAC, while the "Very Heavy" Autocannon is VHAC. There's no weapon in Heavy Gear, either PC or Tabletop that goes by HVAC.

qS Sachiel, on 29 August 2017 - 04:34 AM, said:

Degrassi Junior High Temple?
Lt Col. Antoinne Milleau

mech commander (MCG) & expansion were also amazing

oh yeah, heavy gear 2 is a gem. Still works on win7.
Heavy gear 1 however ...

That's Sous-Caporal Morgausa Temple as I pointed out above, and Sergeant Antoine Maillaux. Maillaux pilots the Dark Cobra type Gear.

And Heavy Gear 1 does still work on Windows 7, it just requires a little finagling. Someone on the Heavy Gear Assault forums, before those were shut down with the move to Steam, had posted a complete "how to" on getting HG1/2 to work on Win7.

I think you could try asking over on the actual Dream Pod 9 forums, I'm sure someone there knows how to get them to work on Win 7, probably 8 and 10 as well by this point.

[JediPanther]

My pc gaming started on the commodore 64 with dad's stack of floppies. I had a lot of midway,ocean,atari,activision games from way back. My modern pc started with the original wolfenstien and doom. Graphics were great for the time but as they got better story and game designed changed some times for the better like regen health in fps vs needing that all important room of power ups before the boss.

My favorite game series way back in the day was done by lucas arts. Tie fighter and x-wing series. Limited wing man commands to attack,follow or defend. Able to call in reinforcements on later missions. Never got into bt/mw much. I didn't have the TT, tried the crap genesis game,played some of mw2 for the first playstation then moved on until I saw the founders videos on youtube so now I'm here.

tie fighter into:

[Tordin]

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".

Woah! I was searching for that old Battlezone game, only found the black and color, tron like one. So it was called Battlezone 98 redux? Ok I needz it noaw! I remember i played the demo, ages back, same for Heavy gear. Didnt have good enough PC back then, so I really did miss out on alot of great gameplay....

*nostalgia intensifies*

[The Basilisk]

Savage Wolf, on 29 August 2017 - 03:22 AM, said:

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.

And again I beg to differ.
The oposite to what you described realy happened.
MWO comes from Battletech. (And for a good portion of the players this is the only reason why they ever would "stoop so low" to touch something like a shooter)
Not vice versa.
Also the casual shooter stuff was forced on the game, making it a mess (on account of IGPs interference with the games development) instead off the more sim like gameplay as it was in closed beta.

And again the only thing that is stuck in the past is MWOs dilettantish techlevel.
Their way of claiming cosmetics and new mechs to be gameplay content actually is the only thing quite up to date as it is found in other trash shooters. (WOTanks for example)

So yea if quality, love for captivating gameplay and fun is backwards...well then I'm a hopeless reversionist.

[Anjian]

This should remind me of giving Heavy Gear Assault a shot once again, to see how well they have improved.

[N0ni]

Alan Davion, on 29 August 2017 - 05:32 AM, said:

You're thinking of Heavy Gear 1 actually, which was built on the same engine as Mechwarrior 2/Mercenaries. Those games had the wire frame "image enhancement" mode, just like HG1 did. That came in really handy in mission 4 I believe it was, when you had to escape from the GREL camp in a bone stock hunter.

Mission 3, but close enough. Extremely makes it easy in Mission 17 when following Janus to his final dueling spot if you don't just out right kill him with a Snub Cannon while skating at 170+.

[Valdarion Silarius]

I think developers had more free time to develop the game that they had envisioned for their products vs what we have now in modern times. Take a look at games like classic Mechwarrior 2. Sure, it was on the 3D graphics hype train that was common for the 90's but look at all the features that you can do in MW:2 vs MW:O.

We had rear cameras, satellite aerial view, somewhat intelligent AI command in lances, first person camera views on fly-by-wire Arrow IV missiles (which is still impressive by today's standards), mission objectives that immersed you into the battletech universe, multi-directional jump jets, and many more interesting things that I'm probably missing.

The video game industry has changed drastically since the 90's. Most earlier game developers (while not all of them) had the time and budget to put out the product that they originally wanted for their product. This isn't by any means an excuse for PGI to release a sub-par product, but things really have evolved for what I can say not for the better for the industry.

[Adridos]

Arnold The Governator, on 29 August 2017 - 11:21 AM, said:

We had rear cameras, satellite aerial view, somewhat intelligent AI command in lances, first person camera views on fly-by-wire Arrow IV missiles (which is still impressive by today's standards), mission objectives that immersed you into the battletech universe, multi-directional jump jets, and many more interesting things that I'm probably missing.

None of that is in any way, shape or form impressive today. Back then it was impressive solely because it was one of the first non-arcade 3D games (as in not being run on a supercomputer stacked inside a box you have to feed quarters).

Rear camera is a 90 degree flip of viewport with turned off cockpit geometry.
Aerial view is also a silly simple thing.
Fly by wire missiles are, likewise, trivial. You just stick the viewport to the missile object and let you apply force to it.
Multi-dimensional jumpjets are likewise something you can do in 5 minutes if you already have basic physics in the game.

Rear camera is a not common nowadays because it screws up the way we build rendering pipelines today, therefore it is an obvious point of bad performance most games can do away with.
Aerial view is simple, viz. WoT artillery for a quick, dirty and cheap example. Problematic in multiplayer games because it lets you see too much.
Fly by wire is implemented wherever you can think of, a nice example being Battlefield 2 (fighter plane copilot launches those). Problematic in multiplayer games because it strips you of control of the primary player, plus it unearths issues with server synchronization and hit detection.
Multidimensional jumpjets are wrong because being mobile is bad in modern games. Compare Tribes 2 with Tribes Ascend. It's still easy to do, there were even MW:O events with the devs where they let it happen, if I'm not mistaken. MW:O Gundams, as people made fun of it.

[Alan Davion]

N0ni, on 29 August 2017 - 11:12 AM, said:

Mission 3, but close enough. Extremely makes it easy in Mission 17 when following Janus to his final dueling spot if you don't just out right kill him with a Snub Cannon while skating at 170+.

I always found a good old Light Laser Cannon was best in that particular mission. Snub Cannon's long range accuracy wasn't the best, especially at high speeds.

[N0ni]

Alan Davion, on 29 August 2017 - 12:50 PM, said:

I always found a good old Light Laser Cannon was best in that particular mission. Snub Cannon's long range accuracy wasn't the best, especially at high speeds.

Yeah the Light Laser Cannon is great for stunning, then just obliterating the engine while he's shutdown. But the Snub was just more fun to have and at those speeds you can easily keep up with him at roughly 200-300 meters. Or you can just cheat and jumpjet up the mountain to cut him off.

[The6thMessenger]

qS Sachiel, on 29 August 2017 - 04:34 AM, said:

Degrassi Junior High Temple?

Sous-Caporal

Morgausa Temple

[Y E O N N E]

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".

Still my favorite game to this day. The mission design hasn't aged well at all, but the basic concepts, the setting, the atmosphere, and the music are...hnnng. Perfection. Not even Battlezone II quite reached the same heights that its predecessor did.

[Hit the Deck]

Tordin, on 29 August 2017 - 10:05 AM, said:

Woah! I was searching for that old Battlezone game, only found the black and color, tron like one. So it was called Battlezone 98 redux? Ok I needz it noaw! I remember i played the demo, ages back, same for Heavy gear. Didnt have good enough PC back then, so I really did miss out on alot of great gameplay....

*nostalgia intensifies*

Yeonne Greene, on 29 August 2017 - 06:27 PM, said:

Still my favorite game to this day. The mission design hasn't aged well at all, but the basic concepts, the setting, the atmosphere, and the music are...hnnng. Perfection. Not even Battlezone II quite reached the same heights that its predecessor did.

Yeah, the setting is really interesting.

It tells us that basically, the space race between the US and the Soviet Union that the media told us was actually a cover-up. They already waged a full scale war out there.

[Y E O N N E]

Hit the Deck, on 29 August 2017 - 06:46 PM, said:

Yeah, the setting is really interesting.

It tells us that basically, the space race between the US and the Soviet Union that the media told us was actually a cover-up. They already waged a full scale war out there.

Yeah. Despite the serious monologues that open every NSDF mission, the game was something of a Doctor Strangelove-type caricature of the Cold War sensibilities. All the stereotypes, everywhere. Battlezone II, on the other hand, was much more serious.

Man, I would love nothing more than to get a modern version of Battlezone 98. Redux is nice, but I want a full-on re-imagining.

[The6thMessenger]

So i just ran HG2 again. Wow it was rather clunky at time, especially the skating mode. But it kind of feels mechwarrior-y, it has limited torso yaw and separate leg movement from torso orientation




Although unfortunately texture seems "transparent", that i can see the path clipping ahead of me, and i can't understand the "depth".

Anyone has a solution to that?