20 replies to this topic

[Hans Von Lohman]

Anybody who has played the board game knows that trees are a big part of the rules. I still have my two fold out cardstock maps with hills, lakes a bunch of clusters of trees.

None of the Mechwarrior games have trees that are anything other than artistic clutter, but have no effect on gameplay. I believe that was an effect of technology limits in PC gaming.

I am hoping this game will change that. I am hoping besides the urban combat mentioned in the devblog that we will also see wooded farmland with clusters of trees that have very real affects on weapon fire, movement speeds, and even unit detection.

Edited by Hans Von Lohman, 01 November 2011 - 10:23 PM.

[Zerik]

Would be really great to have heat efficient 'Mechs sporting flamethrowers to light up a forest that the enemy was traversing, and force many of them into heat induced comas.

[Lostsheep]

Mechwarrior living legends crysis mod you can use trees
**** nice hiding as a tank in the trees

[Aidan]

Hans Von Lohman, on 01 November 2011 - 10:23 PM, said:

Anybody who has played the board game knows that trees are a big part of the rules. I still have my two fold out cardstock maps with hills, lakes a bunch of clusters of trees.

None of the Mechwarrior games have trees that are anything other than artistic clutter, but have no effect on gameplay. I believe that was an effect of technology limits in PC gaming.

I am hoping this game will change that. I am hoping besides the urban combat mentioned in the devblog that we will also see wooded farmland with clusters of trees that have very real affects on weapon fire, movement speeds, and even unit detection.

Have you played MechWarrior Living Legends aka MWLL? The trees in the maps are very real. Many of them are destructible and accurate in scale.

[Hans Von Lohman]

I know of Living Legends, but that has little to do with what Mechwarrior Online is going to have, right?

I'm just hoping that the game has some wilderness heavy maps, and that includes lots of trees that are more than cosmetic.

[Raj]

Speaking of tactical use of the environment. It could be interesting to add bodies of water to important areas of the map to aid in the cooling of mechs defending them (or it could be completely unbalanced ha).

[Aidan]

raj, on 01 November 2011 - 10:48 PM, said:

Speaking of tactical use of the environment. It could be interesting to add bodies of water to important areas of the map to aid in the cooling of mechs defending them (or it could be completely unbalanced ha).

In MWLL, this is accomplished with Area Shape entities surrounding the body of water and then logically linking the Area Shape to a Temperature Flow Node in a Flow Graph used in CryENGINE 2. It works rather well to cool off or heat up the vehicle within the defined Area Shape.

[Hans Von Lohman]

Aidan, I think it is less a discussion on how to implement things (your post seems more geared at modders and programmers, not players), but on whether or not it will even be green lighted in the first place.

I hope there are trees that actually affect your line of sight. You should encounter thick trees that prevent you from seeing through them. They talked about focusing on urban combat as a way to get the fights in close. Well, thick trees can do the same thing

I don't like the idea that all of the combat could be urban combat only. I would hate that actually.

[Jack Deth]

Trees would be awesome. Especially if you can set fire to them to create extra heat and drifting smoke to impair line of sight.

[Tyra]

Trees. Do want.

[Souske Sagara]

Anything that countacts circle-jerking is fine by me. I used hills and forests heavily on grid, and really hated their lack of implementation in the sims.

[MekBeth]

Actually I want a sandbox. This means: complete interactive/destroyable surroundings. I want to see burning trees and collapsing buildings, if you get my drift.

And Hans:

Hans Von Lohman, on 01 November 2011 - 10:23 PM, said:

None of the Mechwarrior games have trees that are anything other than artistic clutter, ...

Here you are wrong. I've been playing MW:LL since it's release in december 2009 - and let me tell you one thing: Trees do affect your gameplay there. You can hide, use them as cover and pulverize them to the size of toothpics. And they do slow down your movement - just like CBT.

Hans Von Lohman, on 01 November 2011 - 10:43 PM, said:

I know of Living Legends, but that has little to do with what Mechwarrior Online is going to have, right?

Ehm. Maybe I got you wrong. But both are Battletech, right? Same universe, same roots. Well - different timelines, profit- vs. non-profit-project, Mech-only vs combined weaponery - what else? Oh yes: Both are Battletech.
I can't help myself. But I have a feeling, that you judge here about something you never tried - or at least watched some vids on youtube. Am I right?



http://www.youtube.c...1&v=3_2n91panK0

[Woodstock]

From the amazing video they released we can see that some of the buildings are destructable. So I guess we can hope that the environment will be destructable. Which for me should include trees, bridges, pylons etc.

As for trees I think that they should block line of sight after a certain distance. They should have an armour value also (very low) and if your shot goes through it its counts as ablative armour for the intended target.

It would be a nice mechanic for weapons to be able to shoot through objects.

So you hit a mostly dead locust with a AC20 and your shot not only kills the locust but also continues on to hit the building behind ...levelling it.

[Hans Von Lohman]

MekBeth, on 03 November 2011 - 03:11 AM, said:

Actually I want a sandbox. This means: complete interactive/destroyable surroundings. I want to see burning trees and collapsing buildings, if you get my drift.

And Hans:


Here you are wrong. I've been playing MW:LL since it's release in december 2009 - and let me tell you one thing: Trees do affect your gameplay there. You can hide, use them as cover and pulverize them to the size of toothpics. And they do slow down your movement - just like CBT.



Ehm. Maybe I got you wrong. But both are Battletech, right? Same universe, same roots. Well - different timelines, profit- vs. non-profit-project, Mech-only vs combined weaponery - what else? Oh yes: Both are Battletech.
I can't help myself. But I have a feeling, that you judge here about something you never tried - or at least watched some vids on youtube. Am I right?

Well, no. You see MW:LL is not actually an offical game for Mechwarrior, which is why I don't really count it. I also was trying to point out that what one game does might have no affect of any kind on how another game company decides to do things, i.e. I don't consider DC Universe Online and Batman:Arkham City to be that much alike, even though both clearly have Batman in them.

That being said, MW:LL is more what I want than the older Mechwarrior 2,3,and 4 games.

In fact, if I could say anything to the developers at Piranha Games is to deliberately NOT copy the older mechwarrior games that much. Just because it was done that way in the past, doesn't mean it was the best or most fun way to do any element.

For example I would say we used to have lots of deserts in the old games because there wasn't the computer horsepower to do a lot of trees. Today I think we can do it no problem

Also, I would completely get rid of the radar of mechs and force players to use their eyes. This is what I think Piranha is doing as they liked to brag about "information warfare" being a big deal for them.

[centurian]

Mechcommander trees wooot! you had to sometimes burn them down to get past or you could walk over some small clusters of them it was cool. I would seriously like some destructable trees in MWO but seeing how the planet its set on looks ruined and dead i guess there wont be that many. I'll settle for desctructable buildings thanks.

[wolf on the tide]

it's a legitimate opertunity to burn some elves enemy mechs

..i'm in

[Volkodav]

Don't worry, the mankind develops! Both trees and buildings and all the rest (developers clever people and all see).

I very much love maps with trees.I have made it for MWLL:

Edited by Volkodav, 09 November 2011 - 12:35 AM.

[Volkodav]

But not only maps with trees and buildings are necessary. Also various lunar and space landscapes are necessary

Edited by Volkodav, 09 November 2011 - 04:05 AM.

[ice trey]

Hans Von Lohman, on 01 November 2011 - 10:23 PM, said:

None of the Mechwarrior games have trees that are anything other than artistic clutter, but have no effect on gameplay. I believe that was an effect of technology limits in PC gaming.

Trees were able to have an effect on Mechwarrior 4 gameplay, but very little. They could absorb a volley or two, and a small 'mech with ECM and IFF Jammers could reasonably hide behind one so long as nobody noticed it under their reticule, but you'd be right to say that it were negligible.

I'll be honest, I enjoy urban maps from time to time, but I don't understand the hard-on that the MWO team seem to have for urban environments. I would much sooner want to play on maps where I was made to navigate forests of pine trees as snow managed to breach the canopies; where running into trees would cause your 'mech to stumble backwards, and where simply jumping over the canopy would save you a wealth of time. Most importantly, where large trees could take some decent damage before they explode into a shower of toothpicks, Where they provided decent enough cover that you could expect to use a copse of trees as a sniper's nest, and where Flamers could light trees into fiery conflagrations in order to make smoke screens or threaten to roast campers in their hidey-holes alive.

[Volkodav]

At is also video of my map