http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/31/meet-mechwarrior-online-piranhas-free-to-play-tactical-mech-sim/

-and-
http://mwomercs.com/


An excellent Birthday Gift

The deets: Lands second half of '12, Will be Free-to-Play, but according to the article:

"MechWarrior Online (MWO) might be free-to-play, but MWO Creative Director Bryan Ekman and Piranha President Russ Bullock insist this is going to be a proper MechWarrior game in the tradition of MechWarrior 2 through 4, not a successor to the Xbox action game Mech Assault. Ekman says joystick support is a strong probability, and both call this a Mech sim."

it's looking like a MW MMO (MMOMW?) title. I'm down for it. Also, while there will be items available for purchase, evidently, none of those items will provide a tactical advantage.

One last thing, if you go to the second link, you can register a pilot name now. I just snagged "Aggressor". Sweet!

Holy Friggin Crap... YES.

Thanks for the heads up.

Smosh has now been registered

uh-oh, I'm seeing some real nasty turbulence ahead...May have spoke too soon



Taken from dev blog Zero:
http://mwomercs.com/news/2011/10/2-dev-blog-0

One of the goals of the team with the mech warrior series was to:

-See, There weren't any game play issues. The game play was fun...unless you were too stupid/impatient to follow half a dozen tutorial missions.



-Ok, I'm seeing the problem. You guys are clueless. The series did just fine for itself on the PC, and only the PC for a long time. You didn't want to make Mech Warrior. You wanted to make Mech Assault. Go have a chat with Sid Myers over at Fraxis, he'll riddle you a bit on the PC market. Sounds like you guys need it...

Now I'm worried, as MWO is the Plan B to a MechAssault reboot on the consoles. Still don't believe me?




I'm sure the company who's mission statement boils down to developing flavor-of-the-week-fast-cash action games has the chops and staff skill-set to make an in-depth thought provoking online sim based on one of the most cherished IP's in PC gaming history. Right...guys...anyone?

I'm gonna go weep in a corner now.

I think you're over reacting a bit. They stated in the interviews on PCGamer this will NOT be a Mechassault reboot.



"I think that’s the number one question a lot of fans have. They want to know if the game we’re making is going to be a MechWarrior product, or if it’s going to be some new evolution, or similar to, say, the past Mech Assault products.

Very simply, I think we can just say, we are making a Mechwarrior game."

And just because they were shopping it to consoles doesn't mean anything. Mechwarrior 2 was on consoles, did that make it any less a Mechwarrior game? Steel Batallion was on a Console, does that make it any less of a Mech Sim? The console is not a limitation if it's done right. And just cause it was shopped to consoles, doesn't mean it'll be garbage.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/31/mechwa...ves-the-series/

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/31/exclus...ng-mechwarrior/

The last great Mechwarrior was Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries. After that one, it was downhill. 3 was a total joke online with the ersmall boating in Owens and Shadowcats and well... 4 was a snipe fest.

Both MW2 games were and still are the best ones ever to be made. Sure, Mercs had the mplas problem, but whatever, it was balanced with the missile boating and jj bug--but all of these made it so great.

+1 to what Aladar said.

From reading the interviews, it seems that the guys behind the game are true fans of the series. Just because they originally aimed it at the console market doesn't mean they're bad devs, it just means that they were trying to be smart business wise. But since they've changed their focus in the past two years, it seems like they've got a good focus on what they want to achieve, and I for one will definitely be playing it. Well as long as it doesn't become a Pay-2-Win title like some of the F2P games out there.

Callsign "Socket" has already been reserved. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with it all.

Also, when they say:


From reading the interviews, it seems like they are talking about the endless circle strafing "dogfights" that you would doubtlessly end up in, or the "snipefests" that were referred to earlier in this thread. The more tactical type gameplay that they are talking about, especially in city areas, seems promising. IF they can pull it off.

But overall, I have a very positive feeling as to where they're going with Mechwarrior.

And they mentioned numerous times they don't want it to be a race to get to the biggest mech, which I love. In the tabletop games, assault mechs have their uses, but can get totally screwed by light guys if done right. I'm hoping they cna translate that into the game properly. I'm noticing this problem in World of Tanks, where everyone seems to play the heaviest tanks, and I'm one of only two or three light tanks in a game of 30 players.

"Ekman says joystick support is a strong probability, and both call this a Mech sim."

Say what? It is not a sim in my book unless it has TrackIR support and mouse clickable cockpits.

Copy that, Xarbat. The fact that joystick support is a "strong probability" and not a certainty makes it difficult for me to be optimistic about this game as a sim -- not to mention that the developers suggested it would have similarities to Call of Duty. TrackIR support, allowing the arms to aim separately from the torso rotation like a HMCS, has long been something I've wished for.

That said, I'm cautiously optimistic at this time, and am reserving judgment -- and a pilot name! It's been too long.