4 replies to this topic

[Victor Morson]

I expect that MWO will draw a lot of casual or non-BattleTech fans into the game by virtue of being a great team centric game involving giant robots shooting each other. Likewise, there will be a lot of MechWarrior fans and those versed in the lore that will likely spend hours writing wiki articles from their own research on game mechanics. This suggestion is for both crowds.

One thing that old games used to do very, very well but for whatever reason went out of vogue was provide LOTS of in-game data about the universe, units, etc. I think this is really a perfect time for that to make it's return in spades.

My suggestion is to, effectively, put in a "library" mode off the shell that provides a huge amount of Universe information as a sort of BattleTech encyclopedia (as close as you can get without stepping on the toes of source books or the like - i.e. perhaps not Sarna-esque direct quotes) about everything possible. Starting at the most important stuff (Backgrounds on the factions, major players in the universe, etc.) and getting down to as much detail as possible (The name of the companies that make the guns and other trivial fluff).

Likewise, I think as much data on weapons and 'mechs should be available as possible, straight up, from the get go without having to locate it externally. What I mean by this is information like heat maps showing the hit areas of the 'mechs (Where does the left torso end and the center torso start?), detailed weapon information including stuff that's not normally needed due to the nature of the canon (Such as exact laser burst durations, etc.) and so forth. Anything that's relevant to game play.

My main motivation for suggesting this is two things: Those newcomers unfamiliar or only passingly familiar with the BattleTech Universe and want to know more can get that knowledge, straight from the game then and there. For those that are interested in this sort of thing, it'll only help enrich the experience and draw them into what's happening more. For those looking for detailed breakdown information - they should have it, without having to record the data and write up out of game reports. There's no reason to hide any of this stuff from the players (though many games seem to think there is), and it'd be awesome to have it all presented straight up to the player in a highly informative manner.

I figure this is something would mostly required some creative writing and perhaps a handful of 2D images at the least, but could none the less be a really neat thing to have integrated into the game. I think it'd make us experienced players happy to have in there, and the less experienced to know what exactly is going on, immersing them further.

[pesco]

Just buy the sarna folks some bandwidth and link with them.

[Stormwolf]

The small library in Mechwarrior 2 is what got me hooked on the BT universe.

So I would really like see some good fluff in the game.

[pesco]

Stormwolf, on 05 April 2012 - 01:13 PM, said:

The small library in Mechwarrior 2 is what got me hooked on the BT universe.

Oh, and I was just going to say this. I loved how that game contained all this weird background info on things. That I didn't know where it was even coming from only made it slightly mysterious. Every mission briefing (page-long walls of text!) would talk about one of these "Kerensky" guys, strange place names, and weird concepts. Every weapon had some alien abbreviation. I loved it.

[Agent CraZy DiP]

I think this is something to hand over to the art team once they've run out things to do.