125 replies to this topic

[Shalmyan Moonsong]

Solaris has been part of the Battletech univerise forever, there is no way to do a Inner Sphere based Battletech game set in 3049 without Solaris, it has been a political proxy plant for years, and with Justin Allard's adventures there being a huge part of events that shaped the core of the Battletech universe, and it became more of a political player after the clan invasion, Solaris is a must.

[metro]

Paul Inouye, on 13 January 2012 - 05:46 PM, said:

What the?!?!

Looks like Paul will be pulling some late nights!

[Damocles]

With Solaris Assault Tech in the works I'd rather PGI save their resources.

[Cattra Kell]

Gentlemen I will restate what I have said on the recent podcast about this (shameless plug!). I am alright for having a Solaris BUT I think it would make a great expansion say 6 months from launch or so. Let PGI get the bones and some muscle onto this entity (MWO) and get it out out and working with some bugs being fixed, etc and then they can work on Solaris and getting that all worked out and developed with a full team and crew not just a division / staff splinter. I want Solaris as much as the next person but I do not feel that it is a requirement at launch but rather would make a excellent expansion at a post launch time.

Edited by Cattra Kell, 16 January 2012 - 04:31 AM.

[DEVASTATOR]

Solaris?? Absolutely. At launch?? No way. There's too much to be done in the game to introduce Solaris right away. Players need to establish themselves, learn the game, get their rides, build up experience, etc. Besides, I think it would be best implemented as an annual or semi-annual tournament for people to play in, not as a pervasive daily event where you would make a living as a Solaris jockey only.

[Fence]

mwhighlander, on 14 January 2012 - 02:03 PM, said:

Has anyone ever considered the potential of "E-Sports" within Solaris? Just saying, its already setup to be a blood sport, I could see Machinma and the like start to cover high end elite matches. Could be a great monetary boost to the franchise as well.

Shoutcasting of TF2, look it up ;D Planning on carrying some of the casting I do in TF to MW if they allow for it

[dh crow]

Solaris AT is probably going to be garbage anyway, but MW:O doesn't need to slip further down the slope by taking on another time-consuming project when it's already looking dodgy.

[Wulfbane]

it will be better then you think.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Wulfbane, on 17 January 2012 - 02:23 PM, said:

it will be better then you think.

Given the ethics of "Balanced Content" of previous work. Unlikely. But then nobody can really say if MWO will be balanced seeing as we know next to nothing at this time.

Also SAT will be location based entertainment, as PGI hold the rights to PC and Console. So i presume location based, means like arcade style machines and not Home Computer?...

Edited by DV^McKenna, 17 January 2012 - 03:04 PM.

[Wulfbane]

Paul Inouye, on 17 January 2012 - 02:23 PM, said:

Yes. I know what the plans are for Solaris. Am I gonna tell you? Nope.

It is now true that he will do it. this was from my mail box.

Edited by Wulfbane, 19 January 2012 - 11:13 PM.

[KJ Crow]

Voted yes -

Think it should be a standard 'leaderboard' like affair normally for people to fight random solo fights, but with arranged tournaments quarterly maybe.

[Kurn Hurin]

mwhighlander, on 10 January 2012 - 09:58 PM, said:

Solaris VII style Championships?

Hell yes, a million times yes! Imagine all the extra dimensions it would add to the game. Allow ranking and competitive ladders for FFA, 1v1, 2v2, full team or oddball style match ups. Also, with the C-Bill economy, it would be a great way to gamble on Merc Units, skilled Warriors or yourself (and vice versa a great money sink as well).


Edit: And for non-ranked competitive It would allow for a "instant action" style play that wouldn't be available for many of us missing out on the lack of single player. "Just want to play a few leisure games?" Here is the perfect solution.

I love the idea of gambling on fights between others, maybe a camera system could be devised for watching the fights? I would imagine that a lot of trade in mechs and components occurs on solaris, so why not use it as a hub for auctions? When a table of wins and losses begins the higher ranked players could fight for sponsorship deals, not C bills necessarily but custom mechs for competition only?

[TheRulesLawyer]

I want it mainly to have a place where people who want an unlimited mechlab can play without screwing up the rest of the game, and having an instant action free for all match will be good for lone wolves.

Edited by TheRulesLawyer, 20 January 2012 - 09:32 AM.

[Wulfbane]

still it is unknown on how they are going to do it. dev stop hiding in the shadows and come out

[Bishop Black]

Yes! Solaris is one of my favorite things about Mechwarrior. I will be disappointed if MWO doesn't have Solaris competitions. I'd like it to be available at the release of the game but I wouldn't mind waiting for it if the devs decide it is necessary.

[Wulfbane]

I think its time to bring this topic back up. To start this topic up again what is your fav mech class battle.

Note: Saying will save the lone wolf problem

Edited by Wulfbane, 04 February 2012 - 03:36 PM.

[El Loco]

I have to agree with almost everyone on that Solaris VII is a must. But I think that we don't need it from the start... and we won't need it the first couple of months. Why? Simply speaking: Because we're all noobs, and Solaris is not for the noobs We should find out what is and is not possible with our favoured / used chassis under the parameters dictated by the used engine and the game mechanics before we engage in epic Solaris battles.

And what we must not forget is this, the clan invasion is going to happen soon (say 4 to 6 months after release), so the devs will be buisy preparing this 'event' (at least I hope they'll do that^^).

my aunt Edith wants me to add something: Favourite 'Mech class? Medium in general, but for Solaris I'd prefer a heavy 'Mech.

Edited by El Loco, 04 February 2012 - 03:47 PM.

[Opus]

Hey I placed 3rd Really I did, Spectre is one hot Mech Pilot, you heard the announcer

[sabotssnake]

I'll add my support to having Solaris as well, although in a different way to most and will probably get ragged for it. I'd like to see an aspect of Solaris as a seperate offline part of the game that would give the player access to bot opponents similar to matches in MW Mercs. Why? Well for a number of reasons.

1, New players would have somewhere become familiar with piloting a mech and to test mechlab or variant configurations under 'simulated' conditions without having to wait waste time for server based training matches. You might only want to test how your light mech will handle firing 4 med lasers at once - will it over heat after you've just removed those 2 heatsinks in the lab - and similar scenarios. After all if you jump into an open training server where several other players that are part of a team testing out tactics (that they may wish to keep secret) they may not appreciate you blasting away at them without being invited (which actually does beg the question on how will training servers work?) Then what do you do? Shoot trees? Also there is always the shame factor of being the noob dropping online into a game of advanced players and getting right royally wasted. Here you could develop some confidence in piloting and gunnery skills without being laughed at.. initially.

2, The offline Solaris would be exactly that offline and therefore have no affect on player's XP or ranking. You can mess around with whatever mechs and gear you already have through online play but that's it.

3, Not everyone who plays MWO will be able to go online on every occasion they wish to play. Maybe they are travelling to an area without decent broadband coverage or their ISP bombs out for a while - you can't play the game. Having something basic like this available offline will allow you to still at least get your MW fix by killing bots.

4, As an alternate expansion to point 2, this would go a long way to salve the players who have cried out against the MMO aspect of the game by giving them a single player experience to mess around with, though only basic free for all and team matches as in MW Mercs. Perhaps another way the offline Solaris could work would be similar in regard to COD offline modes where players can gain experience and level up with access to all modules and mechs as you would in online play - but again has absolutely NO impact on the player's online XP. Afterall if the groundwork and game code for bot AI is in place it would only be a smallish step relatively speaking to develop a fully fledged MW5 that people would love to see since it's already part way done

5, Perhaps most important of all, a small stripped down version (or even a full one as described in point 4) of a Solaris game made available offline could work very well as a demo for people to try before committing to online play. This would allow players who might not be interested and skeptical about online games or the MW universes to try it out first, they would get a taste for the mechlab, mechs, combat etc that would hopefully pique their interest enough to try out the full online version of the game.

Just a thought.

[Zimm Kotare]

I'm not greatly fussed myself, though the occasional event could be quite special.

What I would like to see would be the afore mentioned Shoutcasting & the like. A few games these days have invested in the ability for people to watch after action & so on & although this tends to be used by the more hardcore members of the fanbase, Hardcore is kind of what Mech Warrior does (in my opinion it's not something that such a wide group as the "Casual Gaming Crowd" would stick with in the way they do Halo/Modern Warfare etc). This said, I feel a kind of module for shoutcasting/commentating & the like could be a brilliant addition down the line. Say those with an interest in actually commenting can download/pay for a plugin, allowing them to output to a streaming service of some kind for others to watch in their browser or similar.

I realise this might all appear massively adventurous/pie-in-the-sky, but who wouldn't enjoy a sideline to the MWO ISI updates where various "News Channels"/"Sport Channels" were outputting live breaking events/games (can you say "pretty f-ing awesome" on the first day of the Clan Invasion boys & girls?).

Just a thought *puts on "I'm a Moron so be kind" hat*.