137 replies to this topic

[Chromoid]

Sounds great!

One question: in Dev Blog 5, something was mentioned about the arm aim reticule decoupling and following the cursor, when Pilot Look is activated. Does this mean we can choose to move and fire our arm weapons, while the torso remains locked in another direction?

Edited by Chromoid, 18 March 2012 - 01:38 PM.

[redsoxfanboy231]

were do i get the game

[SirDenOfYork]

InnerSphereNews, on 23 October 2011 - 07:32 PM, said:

Welcome to Dev Blog 0!

Why is it called Dev Blog 0? Well, a lot has happened in the two years since we first announced MechWarrior back in 2009, and we felt a quick recap would help bring everyone up to speed on the events of the last 2 years. In order to make this blog a little more personal, we have referred to many people by first name.
The usage of we generally refers to:

• Jordan Weisman founded FASA and co-created BattleTech. Jordan has also been responsible for numerous other ventures including WizKids, and Smith & Tinker.
  
• Russ Bullock, Owner/President of Piranha Games Inc.
  
• Bryan Ekman, Owner/Creative Director of Piranha Games Inc.
  
• And sometimes the entire team at PGI, some 50+ awesome developers!

So let’s go back to the beginning before the 2009 announcement, when Piranha Games first began working with the MechWarrior license.
Rebooting Piranha Games

Three years ago, during the summer 2008, we put in motion a new strategy for Piranha, one that would focus our efforts on building killer original action games. With this ultimate goal in mind, we focused on three key areas.

• Only take on action based work-for-hire games, such as Transformers 2 and Duke Nukem Forever.
  
• Build an experienced development team, capable of creating fun and engaging products.
  
• Develop a game by acquiring or licensing an existing intellectual property (IP).

With these goals in mind, we began identifying properties that fit the bill. In October 2008, while looking into the MechWarrior rights, Russ, learned that Jordan was working on a new venture at Smith & Tinker. Jordan, through S&T had licensed some of the digital FASA rights back from Microsoft. Not long after the initial call, we began working with Jordan on a new concept, a major update to the MechWarrior franchise.
Rebooting MechWarrior

The initial ideas revolved around revitalizing or rebooting the series by focusing on two areas:

• Increasing the overall graphical fidelity of the entire game, especially the BattlMechs.
  
• Solve some of the long standing gameplay issues from previous MechWarrior games.

From these two key areas, early design pillars emerged in the form of:

• Urban Combat to address circle strafing and long range sniping.
  
• Dynamic Battlefield further expanded on the concepts of Urban Combat and mechs having roles.
  
• Dynamic pacing, introduced an early version of one of the final pillars, Information Warfare.

It would be designed for the Xbox 360 and PC. The game would take place on the planet Deshler, in the year 3015. Single player would revolve around Adrian Kohl and his exploits during an invasion by Kuritan forces. A gritty series of missions, designed to draw people deep into the rich vibrant and treacherous world of BattleTech. Multiplayer was a blend of features from previous MechWarrior games and modern FPS experiences. The package as a whole was the first step in making MechWarior cool again.
We continued to iterate on the design for several weeks, then started developing a plan of action.
Early on we decided to produce a marketing video that would demonstrate many of the core features and rebooted art style. We had three goals:

• Announce the project and generate a major buzz within the gaming community.
  
• Generate publisher interest.
  
• Increase Piranha’s profile as a quality developer with publishers and the community.

The marketing campaign contained 3 teaser videos , the final full length trailer, and a feature interview on IGN. We rolled out the plan during the second week of July, 2009.
The reaction was overwhelming. We anticipated the announcement would generate a lot of buzz, however the end result outperformed even our highest expectations.
Oh Yeah, Harmony Gold

Contrary to all the press and speculation that Harmony Gold was getting in the way of a deal or development, this had no impact whatsoever on development or signing a deal for MechWarrior.
Closing a Deal

The hard work began in earnest after the video release. We had an aggressive schedule to visit publishers and gauge interest. In the month of August we met with all of the major publishers, pitched the MechWarrior game to a captive audience and waited. The answers rolled in slowly, starting with the smaller publishers. Then word showed up from the big five. The answer was no.
We knew going in, there were two major risks. No PS3 version due to a Microsoft restriction, and the epic market collapse and major recession. In the end, it was mostly the lack of a PS3 option that did us in. The scope and budget required to develop a console reboot needed the support of a PS3 SKU and we just couldn’t convince publishers to take a risk. By late fall 2009, our dreams of making a MechWarrior game, began slowly drifting away.
Through the end of 2009 and into 2010 we rallied numerous times, reducing scope and budget, re-pitching the concept as a LIVE only title, etc. etc. In the end, nothing stuck.
To be honest, 2008/09 were some of the hardest times this company has ever seen. We spent a lot of time, resources, money and energy on MechWarrior, and it wasn’t looking good.
Then, in the spring of 2010, we secured the Duke Nukem Forever contract. This was a huge achievement and a cornerstone in our development history. MechWarrior played a large role in helping us secure the deal. A few key hires filled out our incredibly talented multiplayer AAA team.
MechWarrior took a back seat, as we focused on a very challenging and time compressed project.
2010 ended, and we rolled into 2011 without much fanfare as Duke Nukem Forever entered the final phases of development.
The Birth of MechWarrior Online

In the winter months of 2011 we assessed the state of MechWarrior. We came to the realization that any further work on MechWarrior would come at great risk to PGI. If we planned to take on significant risk, we needed to control the IP. After several sessions of deliberation, we decided to plunge in head first. Russ approached Smith & Tinker with regards to licensing the MechWarrior rights and within a few weeks, we signed a deal.
Not long after signing, we quickly realized licensing the rights was one of the most important and future sighted decisions made by us in the last 12 years. Offers were coming in from all over the planet, especially to make or license a free-to-play MechWarrior game.
Because of the overwhelming interest, we decided to spend some time researching what a free-to-play (F2P) MechWarrior game would look like. We spent some design cycles adapting our previous concepts and quickly realized a synergy between F2P and the BattleTech universe. We worked hard through spring, negotiating, designing, and rejecting a few potential partners. As it turns out, we didn’t have to look very far.
During much of the past 12 months there was a local group that also had a large amount of interest in developing and publishing a MechWarrior title. Once Piranha had become the license holder they came over immediately and met with us. From this point onward we decided to combine our efforts with Piranha as the rights holder and with them as the Publisher. After about 6 months of hard work together, funding had been secured, Infinity Game Publishing was born and development could begin.
The most positive thing that can be said about the relationship between Piranha and IGP is that both companies wanted to make the same game and Piranha was free to execute upon our vision.
The road to this Blog was an adventure filled with many hurtles and momentous occasions. We are excited and proud of the direction MechWarrior is taking as a PC F2P game. It offers us the ability to make a successor worthy of the MechWarrior name, and one that fans will enjoy for years to come!
Welcome to MechWarrior Online.

Love, Love, Love the info. all i can say... Thank You...

Cant wait but i guess i have to..

[Wherewolf]

If force feedback is supported I'll go out to the store and get me one.
The last FFjoystick i had was sitting on the shelf so long it's stuck and won't move...

Thank's guys for finally giving us another MW game! I've been waiting since MW4 for another release and was thrilled when I heard about a new release two years ago, and now it's almost here!!!

Edited by Wherewolf, 19 March 2012 - 02:40 PM.

[TackaTack]

Regarding the environment and weather effects. Will there be special camouflage and other things to help your mech in that environment?

And will different environments affect your weapons and how much you overheat and even maybe intelligence/ information warfare.

Example: In the desert you overheat faster and you might see mirages.

In an arctic environment you overheat less and if you shutdown to long your mech may take longer to reboot because it froze a bit.

Blizzards and snow might hinder movement. You can write messages in the snow and ice. "I WAS HERE" lol sounds comical


These examples may seem too technical but that what makes Mechwarrior cool: attention to detail.

[Semyon Drakon]

Something that wasn't addressed was when a centre torso kill is achieved and the engine takes critical hits, is there a chance of a catastrophic reactor failure? I know some people don't like them but I did always like the slight chance that the fusion reactor would let go and turn the surrounding area into a fireball.

Semyon

[Dergholm]

Curious about the damage mechanics? Can any weapon damage any Mech? As I have become increasingly irritated in World of Tanks when a lower tier tank eg light tank scores a direct hit on a heavy Tank yet does no damage as it wasn't able to penetrate the heavy tanks armour.. I pray MWO doesn't adopt this approach. I have played mechwarrior on computer since the RPG "Crescent Hawks Revenge" and in MW4 enjoyed being in a group of lights that would swarm and take down an assault mech. I under stand that light mechs wont do as much damage as higher tonnage mechs but as long as they still do Damage!

[IronSardaukar]

Salivating...

[AdiY]

Interesting information.But it almost same as other mechwarrior series.

[Soviet Alex]

A quick aside on the leg-loss debate. I once won a medal (Explorer Corps badge) from the head of Mechforce UK (long time ago!), because I kept fighting in a Clan Grand Melee after losing a leg & both arms. However, I'm fine with the loss of both legs knocking me out of the game. Whilst I might be able to do something useful, the odds are that the next shot would finish me anyway.

[Applefett]

Here's a really crazy thought I had, what if you could work undercover, like be on your enemies team, and sabatoge them when the time is right?

[EvangelionUnit]

hello there,
first post here from me.

a question thats bugs me: would it be possible to set the fire modes for every weapon group ? so lets say i play a catapult with the two LRM 15's and 4 medium lasers ...

while my team is not this great in stoping scouts i want to set the medium lasers in chain fire, so i have some tries to hit fast moving, close targets (the said scout mechs) but the same time, i want to have both LRM launchers in group fire so i can unleash 30 missiles at once if someone marks me a target on the other side of the map

thanks in advance !

[Blaze32]

For mounting equipment (such as AMS, BAP, ECM), will we be able to place it anywhere there is critical space, as the devblog indicates heat sinks can be placed, or will those items have hardpoint limitations as well? –Solis Obscuri
[DAVID] For the most part, you’ll be able to place non-weapon equipment anywhere, subject to critical slot and tonnage restrictions. Though there are some restrictions. Some are derived from the tabletop rules, like CASE being allowed only in the torso locations, while others are specific to our game, like jump jets being allowed only on variants and locations that include jump jets by default.

So does this mean that:
AMS takes a missle hardpoint
NARC takes a missle hardpoint
TAG takes a energy hardpoint
Are all only for spacific mechs like the cicada and Cataphract with no missle hardpoints cant put an AMS or a NARC on there mech? Isn't that limiting costumization to much or is that just me?
If people are worried about people with a huge amount of AMS they could have a limit on amount of that equipment per mech. EX)1 narc per mech or 5 AMS a mech. Those are just random numbers to show a point I am not saying these numbers be used because it is up to the devs for that...

Edited by Blaze32, 27 May 2012 - 08:09 AM.

[Blaze32]

Lightwolfii, on 12 May 2012 - 06:29 PM, said:

Here's a really crazy thought I had, what if you could work undercover, like be on your enemies team, and sabatoge them when the time is right?

Bad idea could get confusing and no one would trust anyone on there team because you don't know who the deceiver is; when teams are built and work with trust, tactics, and recon.

[Strum Wealh]

Blaze32, on 27 May 2012 - 08:07 AM, said:

For mounting equipment (such as AMS, BAP, ECM), will we be able to place it anywhere there is critical space, as the devblog indicates heat sinks can be placed, or will those items have hardpoint limitations as well? –Solis Obscuri
[DAVID] For the most part, you’ll be able to place non-weapon equipment anywhere, subject to critical slot and tonnage restrictions. Though there are some restrictions. Some are derived from the tabletop rules, like CASE being allowed only in the torso locations, while others are specific to our game, like jump jets being allowed only on variants and locations that include jump jets by default.

So does this mean that:
AMS takes a missle hardpoint
NARC takes a missle hardpoint
TAG takes a energy hardpoint
Are all only for spacific mechs like the cicada and Cataphract with no missle hardpoints cant put an AMS or a NARC on there mech? Isn't that limiting costumization to much or is that just me?
If people are worried about people with a huge amount of AMS they could have a limit on amount of that equipment per mech. EX)1 narc per mech or 5 AMS a mech. Those are just random numbers to show a point I am not saying these numbers be used because it is up to the devs for that...

AMS is essentially a machine gun slaved to an automatic targeting system (it's just like the CIWS used on modern naval ships), but is not usually considered a weapon in its own right (unless some special rules are invoked), so if it's going to need hardpoints, it would use ballistic hardpoints, yes?

The Narc Missile Beacon Launcher, by contrast, is typically considered to be a missile weapon rather than "equipment" in the same sense as, say, BAP or GECM (or AMS), so I would imagine that it would use missile hardpoints.

TAG isn't typically considered a weapon, so I would imagine that it probably would not require a hardpoint to mount.

If Narc launchers require hardpoints, they would likely be missile hardpoints; if that is the case, 'Mechs without missile hardpoints would be unable to carry Narc launchers.
I would imagine that AMS and TAG (and a few other things), however, would not require hardpoints (but would still require critical spaces) and could be equipped on any 'Mech.

As for worrying about massed AMS... canonically, AMS only protects the 'Mech its mounted on (so that a single AMS-laden 'Mech can't act as the anti-missile platform for the entire lance/company) and uses ammunition very quickly (thus requiring multiple tons of ammunition, and the consumption of tonnage and critical spaces not devoted to more weapons/armor/heat sinks/etc).
As long as those aspects are carried over, the ability to mount multiple AMS shouldn't be too much of a concern.

Your thoughts?

[Iram Dei]

So quick question for you guys, I could not find the answer to this anywhere. Is ammo going to be disposable (ie you buy it and once you use it you need you buy more?) or will is stay in the mechlab (ie, I buy 5 AC 5 Ammo packs, use them, and come back into the mechlab with the same five) Does that make sense?

[Ace Ackbar]

Well taht answers that! lol

[Kalenn]

Frankly I was a bit surprised at the keyboard / mouse basic control scheme. Need to have a Joystick option! Many traditionalists like me will want one as it more closely reflects the reality of controlling a mech. Can you imagine Victor Davion pointing and clicking? Also, how does one account for tracking time / rotation speed with mouse controls? I recall trying it once in MW4 (where it was an option), and to look around you had to keep lifting the mouse. One should not have 1:1 movement between their mouse and the view (even if it's just guns or arms with the torso following) - ie, takes more than a blink for a 100 tonne atlas to rotate its turret (and the sqishy inside it) from left to right...

[BDThumper]

The question have is pretty simple but I couldn't find the answer so I will ask. I purchased the Legendary Pack which gives a XP and cBill bonus of +25%. If I have a premium account, adding +50% to XP and cBills, is this additive?

I had read in a Q&A thread that the Founders packs bonus was calculated after the mech exited battle.

When does the +50% for Premium get added? If in game, prior to exit, does that mean a battle with a XP gain of 10 and cBill earning of 100 would be 15 XP and 150 cBills. then the founder pack bonus of +25% would then be added resulting in a total of 18 XP and 180 cBills,

will it be cumulative such that a founder with a premium account would gain +75% resulting in a gain of 17 XP and 175 cBills, or

does the higher cancel the lower resulting in a straight +50% resulting in a flat 15 XP and 150 cBill gain?

[TheSilverCrow]

Very helpful guys. i am greatly anticipating the release!!!!!