37 replies to this topic

[Kanatta Jing]

I'm afraid that the bulk of the game will take place in the periphery.

The most frenzied action will likely take place on the planets in the path of the upcoming Clan invasion. Also which ever worlds are the most unusually rich.

The fate of the universe will pale in our eyes before the fates of our House and Mercenary companies.

[eZZip]

Xaks, on 12 May 2012 - 03:01 PM, said:

OK, here goes. This is gonna be LONG, so warning you ahead of time. These are just kinda thoughts I had and some ideas while pondering a fictional "Battletech Online" that I was inventing in my head on the ride home. (I had a 100 mile a day commute. For four years.)

I hope MWO will be nothing like what you describe. Not all players want to do super RP time.

[Spider]

eZZip, on 12 May 2012 - 07:48 PM, said:

I hope MWO will be nothing like what you describe. Not all players want to do super RP time.

This is true but there would be something for all types of players in a game like that, hardcore or part-time.

[BFett]

Xaks, on 12 May 2012 - 03:01 PM, said:

OK, here goes. This is gonna be LONG, so warning you ahead of time.
.....
Broad strokes
Some detail
Mostly overview and generalized approach

I think games these ideas are great. A real economy with real time contract system could do wonders for the mmo game industry.

[Volthorne]

BFett, on 12 May 2012 - 09:01 PM, said:

I think games these ideas are great. A real economy with real time contract system could do wonders for the mmo game industry.

If you want to see it, you could go ahead and write all the scripting that would be necessary for such a universe to exist. I wouldn't even touch it, because I have a rough idea of how long it WOULD take to write.

Edited by Volthorne, 12 May 2012 - 09:20 PM.

[Zakatak]

PGI already confirmed that every square centimeter of landscape, of every planet and moon, in every system, in and out of the Inner Sphere, is textured and traversable. Every mech, fighter, dropship, warship, tank, hovercraft, and jeep will be driveable.

[Deathz Jester]

I'd like to think we get to reforge history to a small extent.

[Odin]

Greetings!

We'll need an avatar.

A focus, to tie down all gain and experiences made in the sphere. An E-mail system, the ability to transfer C-Bills and hardware.
The metagame, your story and role in the sphere, your deeds, have to be tied down somewhere and made accessible.
If EVE or any other modern MMO is the direction, this game should or could be heading (over time), it starts with your humble self - your mechwarrior-avatar.

I am not talking about MMO mechanics here, there are many concepts out there, not all are suitable for our Innersphere.
A lot of data has to be made transparent, a newsfeed system.

I like the general idea. If , someday, MWO should be taken beyond its core - mech combat - it starts with the pilot.

Great Ideas guys.



S!

[Morashtak]

IF this game should take off and be massively embraced then, yes, we can look forward to additional features added over time. But it's up to us, the enthusiastic, to get the word out and recruit using three simple words "Free to Play". Free to download, free to try out, free to see if it's their type of game.

But if only a small, hardcore number of players hear about it and stick around then we will have what it is and no more. The monies have to be there for the very basic of support. Only after those expenses are met can PGI look to develop the game further.

Should the time come that PGI has upwards of one million plus rabid fans on their hands I would hope, make that dearly love, to see combined arms introduced later™ after the Clans invade, followed later™ by economies and more faction options and then later™ still a more sandbox-like playstyle. Each one of these steps would be months in the implementing and release, of course.

[FaustianQ]

I'm personally wondering how Merc factions and House factions will be getting along. The less control a player has in a house, the more likely you'll see the better, more organized players gravitate towards mercenary. Once that happens, the Merc corps may end up as larger, more skilled, powerful organized entities that the factions can't push around any longer, which itself may impact canon.

What if a merc corp simply doesn't want to hand over the planets back the FWL? What are the going to do about it? What if even if they have options, are they capable of enforcing them? What happens when a large merc corp can slap another faction around silly (think Goonswarm)? Doesn't the merc corp now have more political will then the faction they smacked around?

A solution could be transport or logistics - a merc corp could have the ability to fund it's own, but a factions comes free of charge. For small Mercs, this might work with having the logistical support pulled out from under them, but again, larger entities may be able to ignore this entirely. Keep in mind, the penalty cannot be so large as to make the game unfun for Mercs, or essentially make them extensions of the House faction in all but name.

Still, this could allow a thriving economy - due to greater freedom, mercs will usually be more skilled and can act as cheap force multiplier for a House, while Houses act as large sources of logistical support that makes running a Merc Corp easier, but not impossible to run without. However, this still requires some actual force of will within a House faction, not a script which generates missions.

At least to me this is where the disconnect happens, and where I think the game is going to be less on rails then some think. Factions need some force of will or organizational force, or said force will gravitates towards merc corps, which can then potentially contest the will of Factions. I'm hoping less for Hanse Davion and more like "Political Entity/Officer no.485".

[Trevnor]

Okay, as a student of the game design industry, I can tell you guys right now, that because of the model that PGI has adopted, a MMO like EVE Online or WoW would be very very difficult to implement. The smaller sections, such as a in-game currency and purchasing 'mechs and such wouldn't be the issue, in fact, it's already been implemented if the screen shots of the 'mech lab are anything to go by. No, the real challenge would be to write a story for anything like this. Which is why I personally don't think PGI should bother. Why, you ask?

Well, think about it, most of the rich story that we will be seeing will be already completely player driven. I've only recently joined the merc corp the Skjaldborg, and let me tell you, we already have created a rich backstory, have lots of RPer's, and set up matches with other mercs for fun. As the player base, we can easily just make up a reason why we are attacking a planet, or defending a planet, or prepping an invasion corridor for a faction to stab deep into another one. PGI is simply providing to tools to do this, and we, the players will create the lore within the confines that PGI has so kindly provided.

As a Free to Play game model, MW:O doesn't really have the resources, or really need to be more than economy, match ups, and a 'mech lab. It's a lot simpler for PGI to just let the player base create it's own story set, as previously mentioned, within the confines that they provide. The merc corps can make their own path. Factions can too, albeit slightly more limiting. Also, to create AI is a very large task, one that PGI could no doubt pull off, given time. That being said, most of the "Story" telling would be easily done through the simple text of mission orders, at the most. We wouldn't need avatars, wouldn't need to talk to a NPC to get a mission, wouldn't really need anything more than "An incursion has been detected. Go stop it." The players can easily provide the reasons for attacking.

TL;DR PGI needs only to provide the setting(economy, 'mechs, simple mission orders), while we, the players, provide the rich story and background that we can within the confines of the game and established lore. There is still lots of room from stories, even if the lore is followed to a T.

That's by two C-bills.

[FinnMcKool]

How much of the game does MWO really own?
Can they , if they want to add to the lore or Canon?
Im not saying change , but add to .

for instance; we are forced to start Merc groups from skratch,
can we really make a name for ourselfs ?
could some one write a book about us and put us into the lore?

or going an other route , can PGI invent a new Mech?
maybe little known or used, but a Mech that becomes
part of Canon?

I would hope they could, Im certain it could all be done without
changing the Historic parts of what is already canon or lore,
and I think it could be come very awesome to give those of us
who have been fans for so long a chance to be part of something
we only dreamed of before.

[machine]

If this does end up influencing meta game development then im all for it.

[Zanathan]

Having an extensive metagame would be fanatastic but in it's current form and development path I think it's would be very difficult to do without breaking what is going to be in place.

From what I understand of Community Warfare (snippet of the dev blog below), it sounds like RvR with battles/wars over worlds/planets. If done properly this is great stuff as it will be an ever evolving landscape of control by your faction/clan and this drives having a purpose and goal at end-game.

Quote

At its core, the territory battle is a fight for resources – planets. Planets are divided into three types. Each type requires a more active level of participation by the player and as a result earns a greater reward.

• Core Worlds – Are managed by the dev team. These are worlds that necessary for future planning and part of major historical events.
  
• Faction Worlds – Are fought over by Faction players. These planets buffer core and border worlds, and do not play a significant role in major historical events. Rewards for controlling these planets are directly linked to global bonuses and abilities associated with a player’s Faction.
  
• Border Worlds – Are fought over via a contract bidding system by player run Mercenary Corporations. These planets change hands on a regular basis, and have no impact on historical events. Rewards for controlling a boarder world are significant and go directly to the occupying Merc Corp.

It’s important to state now, that worlds can change from Border to Faction to Core, or any combination thereof, at any time by the development team. This will be necessary to facilitate dramatic changes in faction territory control as we progress through some tumultuous times within the BattleTech® universe.

Additional content could be an NPC group that invades and occupies sections of the galaxy thereby throwing the balance into disarray.

Although I really do like the idea of finding or salvaging technology from explored planets and usign them to research and improve the existing technology for self gain. This can be added to the Community Warfare by having this tech to progress the overall faction/clan tech as well as your own individual tech.

[MacCaileanMor]

I would like to see the merc companies, teams, or clans (or whatever they will be called in the metagame) have drop ships. The drop ships will be an asset the teams can acquire and members of the team will be posted on certain drop ships. Positioning of the drop ships will be a significant strategic consideration for each team as it will determine how many mechwarriors (and what mechwarriors) are available for a fight.

[Theron Branson]

I think it would be cool if the devs make it a little like WW2 Online/Iron Hearts where each faction would/could have a High Command and can declare war, target sections of space (to conquer all the planets within that section). This could be done if properly implemented and wouldn't care about number of players being heavy towards 1 house. There are several games like this coming online now (Heros and Generals example) where players can command sub units (say a Battalion or Regiment) and have influence on the game but overall game can be limited directed by the devs to keep somewhat balance and steam rolling by 1 or 2 factions. When the clans arrive, I honestly think they should be dev controlled and by the computer because real human players would never play like they did (1 vs 1 and bidding for the least amount of mechs to commit to a battle and so on) so the IS warriors would stand a chance. Mercs, Units and so on can be hired by factions and can fight as their own unit.

Edited by Theron Branson, 07 October 2012 - 05:27 PM.

[Johnny Z]

Odin, on 12 May 2012 - 09:56 PM, said:

Greetings!

We'll need an avatar.

A focus, to tie down all gain and experiences made in the sphere. An E-mail system, the ability to transfer C-Bills and hardware.
The metagame, your story and role in the sphere, your deeds, have to be tied down somewhere and made accessible.
If EVE or any other modern MMO is the direction, this game should or could be heading (over time), it starts with your humble self - your mechwarrior-avatar.

I am not talking about MMO mechanics here, there are many concepts out there, not all are suitable for our Innersphere.
A lot of data has to be made transparent, a newsfeed system.

I like the general idea. If , someday, MWO should be taken beyond its core - mech combat - it starts with the pilot.

Great Ideas guys.



S!

At the start Mechwarrior was an a sort of expansion to battletech, focusing on the mechwarrior inside and outside the mech rather than the mech itself. This addition included personal gear and the like. And yep it would be great to jump out of the mech some time. Hope it isnt ejecting above a mushroom cloud like the trailer. some have said that was all in game footage to...........

http://www.youtube.c...d&v=3CWr3ZUQJeo

[BFett]

Johnny Z, on 08 October 2012 - 03:11 AM, said:

At the start Mechwarrior was an a sort of expansion to battletech, focusing on the mechwarrior inside and outside the mech rather than the mech itself. This addition included personal gear and the like. And yep it would be great to jump out of the mech some time. Hope it isnt ejecting above a mushroom cloud like the trailer. some have said that was all in game footage to...........

http://www.youtube.c...d&v=3CWr3ZUQJeo

It was in-Engine footage taken from within the Unreal Engine. That game has gone dormat as PGI was forced to go the Free to Play route or not create the game at all. More information about why PGI changed games can be found in dev blog 0.

The mech bay shown at the start up of the game is good enough for me as far as seeing my mech from a person's perspective. There are many things we would like to see; but everything takes time.