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long before MWO was even announced, and without knowing about the existance of MP:BT and such games (shame on me, now that i know i am so jealous of all the ppl who played all that MW stuff online...)
i had my own vision of a MW online game... 1st of all, this is not a "PGI, do it this way, or else i want a refund"... it´s just a sharing of my ideas i had a good while ago...
i wouldn´t mind if PGI gets some inspiration from it, even if some of it will be planned already. and some of it already existed in other MW onlinegames...
like i said, it´s based on my daydreams, and if you have critics, ideas, additions, or just some words for it, feel free to discuss
The Basics:
You would start as a rookie, weither on one of the home planets of each house, on Outreach or if undecided yet, Solaris VII...
Let´s take Solaris as our example for the walk through..
you get to Solaris, with nothing than a bagpack and offer your talent as a mechwarrior... meaning you don´t have an own mech, you participate in random deathmatches/ teamdeathmatches in a "boroughed" mech (you can compare that to a tutorial with the trial mechs^^)
and earn your first money... (the same would happen on houseworlds and outreach, as a recruitment trial, to see if you are worth joining the academy/ mercenary training program)
and yes, you would have an avatar... that would be used only on those "starter worlds",
to walk around and find different locations...
we´ll stay at solaris for now... there would be recruitment officers of each house, and a representative of wolfs dragoons, providing some informations about their faction, and the offer to sign up for duty...
if you don´t, you could just stay, and start a career as a gladiator... that would mean: no interstellar war for you, but some easy money and solaris chicks^^...
there also would be stores: a trader for used crappy battlemechs (hey, those things are expensive after all, and a rookie doesn´t earn alot
)stores for vanity items for both your mech and your avatar, one or more clubs (maybe one more noble, a shady backstreet pub and such ) where you can meet ppl, where contractors of playerunits can go to recruit you or leave messages on a board...and where you could spectate league turnaments ... and of course your stable/ mechbay (later in the game maybe in your unit´s base or what ever)
so after you went through the punishment of the startermechs, and possibly made a good position in the "rookie league" (recruitment tests) you can walk to one of the faction recruiter NPC´s, grab your barely repaired and outfitted battlemech, and go for it...
The Houses:
after your first steps, you become a recruit to a certain faction/ house you decided it fits you... basically the system used wouldn´t be so different from what MWO has planned... you earn experience and faction points with every battle, you can join and form playerunits within the house, or just stick to the NPC-driven unit you have been assigned to..
you rank up, unlock skills and equipment, and best of all, mechs
yes you would have access to all weightclasses, but you would have to prove yourself worthy to get a new one
depending on which path of skills you go for (similar to MWO you would have roles like scout, commander, support and assaultpilot...assaultpilot doesn´t mean you are allowed only assault mechs, it means any mech you use, you use it to attack^^) some mechs would be easier/ cheaper to unlock for you... the skillsystem wouldn´t be that restrictive as the "average MMORPG" nowadays, but you also wouldn´t be able to get everything... it would aim for many ways to make a pilot kind of unique, as in you could be a jack of all trades or take a more specialized path... won´t go into detail here, the next step will be long enough for now^^
the planetary conquest!
yea what shall i say, we are still in the BT Universe, so ya know the deal...houses want more and possibly keep the territory they have... and everytime when there is something "unclear" between 2 houses, you, the mechwarrior, come into play (literally^^)
from the first moment ever i thought about such a game, one picture was pinned right before me: conquest will be conquest...
every few hours, some border worlds would start flashing on the IS map...(in a random rotation, so that there is always some war going on, not only "daily at 6p.m. PST") so planets that are ready to be attacked... players would first have to build up a unit of at least basic strength (there would be a maximum also) . so one or maybe more ppl take the charge, they´ll be the campaign commanders, forming the team and determining the target planet to attack or defend... after done that, the system compares the strength of attackers and defenders, and probably sends contract offers, if one side is stronger than another... mercenaries (and lonewolf? you know those solaris guys?^^) can accept those...
it does so even if there is only a attacker, but no defender for a planet.
if one side is still weaker, they can deside to take the risk, or leave it... a good commander has all chances of the universe, to win an uneven fight (against the odds:) )
when the battle finally starts, it actually starts a row of battles, maybe 4 matches...
if the attacker wins the first match, they make progress, meaning they set foot on the planet, if they lose, they have 3 other tries... just say they win, match 2 starts, they win..and so on..match/map 4 will be the final assault for the capitol or another vital spot on the planet... they win, planet conquered... (yes, you would need ALOT of maps to bring some diversity to different planets)
if attackers lose on match 2, they are driven back, meaning match 3 will played on map 1 again, start sides switched
if they lose again, the assault ends after 3 matches, unlucky, but that´s it, come back later 
if they lose in step 3 or step 4, ONE rematch will happen, and if they win, they can progress (well not on map 4... they win..) if they lose again...byebye (you could also keep that on, as long as each unit has enough resupply ressources, if such a system would be available, not sure, but sounds funny^^)...so an assault on a planet would contain between 3 and 5 matches, with an ideal of 4
once these matches are over, no matter who was successful, the planet can´t be attacked for about 24 hours...
but like mentioned above, there would be flashing lights on the starmap 24/7, so there would always be something to do... we have enough planets, don´t we^^
mercenaries would be awarded in multiple ways... the contract money, loyality points with a certain house and ..of course...salvage rights... after an assault, a certain ammount of mechs and/ or equipment (depending on the "worth of the contract...unimportant planets give less income and close to none salvage rights) , determined by the participating and destroyed mechs, will be shown, and can be selected ( weither by a merc´s group leader or one selection from every mercenary, if they are "solo"...)
note: those salvaged things would NOT be removed from the owner, they are just representing the participating units... i wouldn´t want to punish players for playing
salvaged mechs would be total wrecks, you could weither repair and refit them, or sell them on the aftermarket (accessable from any "starter world") ...salvaged equipment would also be sellable or you just use it...
The Big Picture:
naturally, you don´t conquer a planet to make it a present for your wife (ahm...no...you don´t ... you are a bad boy mr. davion...)
you conquer it because you think it will give you an advantage... weither its a poor planet, but important for a border garrison,or it´s a rich industrial colony with rich commodities...
in case of the latter, it would give your house some benefits ( or yourself as a mercenary, if you have a good standing to that house, see later)
such as market prices for certain mechs go down, the availability rises (because you own the production facility) ... i didn´t go into detail of all possible benefits for different stuff, but i think you get the point... (maybe armor and ammunition costs influenced by commodities you can claim)
mercenaries can benefit from that indirectly: they have a standing system based on loyality points... everytime they fight for a house, they gain + standing for it...if they win more, if not less, but still +... they gain - standing with a directly opposed house... with a neutral house, they gain nothing... if they earned enough + standing with a house, they reach the "friendly status", which allows them to access the market of that house, and buy stuff for their prices.. (yea, it doesn´t automatically mean that it´s cheaper than elsewhere, depends on what you wanna have
) you can also reach higher levels, like "loyal" and "exclusive contractor", but that´s a long way to go... at that final level, mercenaries will have the sameaccess to maybe house exclusive mechs and equipment as a high ranked house pilot, for a more or less low price, a little more expensive than a house member though^^
and, if available, they would be able to earn house specific achievements (badges and medals, but no titles within the house, they would have to join it first... sidenote: mercenaries and lonewolfs/ solaris gladiators CAN join a house, but they lose all loyality point or whatever else they achieved in their recent carreer...>mechs and money excluded< ... except they reched the highest loyality level, then they can join and get an equal rank within that house)
mercenaries have one huge benefit: they can claim territory for their own, but they have to take it from bandits and pirates in the periphery... the overtake is handled just as any other planetary conquest, but only lonewolfs can participate on the side of the bandits...
if a merc-corp owns a planet, it has to bring up a certain ammount of c-bills to maintain that base, and certainly it has to be defended from other merc-corps... you can build up a headquarter, upgrade certain thing like mechbays, repairstation, defensive systems and so on ...
a battle between 2 merc corps for a planet would ONLY be possible by appointment, so one can not attack while there is no defender online... but a merccorp HAS to answer to the attack declaration within a week, or else they lose the planet to bandits again.. if the merccorp feels too weak to defend their home alone, they can add a contract offer to the outreach database and/ or ask for help from fellow mercs... (btw...the clan system would work in a similar way, with some tweaks for sure
)yea well... that´s the vision of a MechWarrior MMO that came to my mind...
best regards, A.Vorton, Mercenary
