The campaign of Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries is still one of my favorite campaigns in anything ever.  I loved that game.

What years did the regular Mechwarriors come out? I used to remember a lot of people talk about them, or saw the boxes at the old game stores, but never played.. was it kind of a FPS with Robot style vehicles?

It was during the 90's.

It was an action simulator, as far as you could call anything a sim at that time.

It tried to portray what it might have been piloting a Mech as the pilot inside the actual vehicle. 

As much as a FPS might apply to it in a strictly technical standpoint, I don't think it was marketed as one; I think it was dubbed a Mech Simulator.

And then later on those Mechs got a job in Starcraft and many other games to follow!!! 

I played something really old back in the 90's sort of like that.. I think it was called Ultrabots, there was three types of vehicles, at the time, I thought it was best!!..

Originally Posted By cmurphy (8 AUG 2012 12:14pm)

What years did the regular Mechwarriors come out? I used to remember a lot of people talk about them, or saw the boxes at the old game stores, but never played.. was it kind of a FPS with Robot style vehicles?

Hrmm.. I think the second one - or was it the 3rd(?)- was around 2000 or so? 

It's kinda like an FPS.. kinda.  I suppose it'd be closer to how World of Tanks is, actually.  I suppose WOT may have taken some of it's inspiration from the old MWs. 

It was really cool that you could mix & match the outfitting on your mechs, even though some pieces were imbalanced such as the biggest Autocannon also having the capability to knock an enemy's mech down if they were hit (despite a low rate of fire and lower ammo amount).   You could also have jump jets on the (mostly) smaller ones which is a pretty cool way of giving them extra agility.  The whole setting for Battletech is pretty cool what with the endless galactic wars and all the interesting sci-fi hardware (and the methods of travel and delivery I found particularly interesting, obviously taking some cues from Heinlen's Starship Troopers).

I never played the last one, even though I had eyed it for some time.  I heard that they trimmed back the customization or something, so was fenced until I forgot about it.  Good thing there's a freebie version now, even though I was never able to get the download/installer mess to begin when I've tried.

First of all MECHWARRIOR is BATTLETECH the minatures in a computer game, the minatures game has been around since the early 80s if not earlier. They are one and the same if you have ever seen battletech being played at the local games shop. So it has a huge amount of background lore and generally follows the same rules of the board game allowing you to customise weapons and heat sinks, armour etc on a chassis to make a mech. This equals massive customisation possabilities and massive balance due to weight and heat dissipation balance. 

I would characterize mechwarrior as a simulator because you are sitting in a cockpit in first person and the whole keyboard is mapped to all manner of complexity. It may not be as complex as a full realism flight simulator. But it has enough complexity to turn some casual players off. If you played Xwing or Tie Fighter that is about the complexity of a mechwarriors cockpit in mechwarrior games I have played.

A mech is basically war machine with advantages over a tank. It is the ultimate heavy armoured mobile tank brigade of the future.

Mech's of 100 tonnes are classed as heavy. Twice the weight of a modern tank and still mobile as they do not need bridges and can spread weight a lot better over feet while keeping up speeds of up to 100km p/h or more. 

Allegedly (because is sci-fi) they have worked their way around smashing the pilot to bits with the shock from the mech walking by inventing some sort of cushon system that absorbs all of the shock.

In addition to this a mech carries a lot more weaponry and can go a lot more places than a tank could go and absorbs a lot more punishment. Perfect for rushing around doing all kinds of missions. 

One obvious disadvantage is a Mechs high profile. However Mechs can kneel and lay down depending on the model.

Unlike Japanese Mecha (giant robots) these mechwarrior mechs are not acrobatic and cannot do extreme manoevers. Compared to japanese mechs european mechwarriors move like dinosoars rather than monkeys. Mechwarrior mechs however move like balerinas compared to tanks. 

The pilots or mechwarriors are an elite of society, however there are also many mercenary and planetary militias. 

Mercenary groups often get the raw end of political deals of course or can get rich and powerfull fueled by war between waring factions.

Mechwarrior factories are rare as the tech is lost. Mechs are therefore valuable assets. Dropships will transport them to planets and they can drop in to take control without requiring the access a tank would need to good terrain.

There is a good deal of myth and lore I could tell you about like comstar, mechwarrior protectors of the interplanetary communications arrays and their best kit and the clans, returning warriors from a long ago exodus of the original mechwarrior creators tribes. They still have all of the lost tech and more making their mechs seem super compared to the tech they left behind tech, they have decided they want to take their old empires back.

P.S. I played ultrabots as well back in the day. It is like a very light version of mechwarrior with less character.

This intro was sweeter than chocolate when I first saw it played an intro to mechwarrior2. Now it looks very dated.

A somewhat newer mechwarrior game. I wish they would just make a 2hr version of this movie!

They made a TV series out of it in the 80s

The minatures game:

as... as.... the cliffhanger is killing me!

lol. Winphone7 must have lost the rest of my post!

Great writeup, Destraex.

I am a great fan of the Battletech miniature wargame. I have lots of books and quite a collection of mini's, but I don't really feel excited about the MWO game.

I did enjoy the other MW games, though, but this one, without any narrative, just feels like a shallow iteration of the battletech universe and pretty much Doom or Unreal with Mechs.

You touched upon the huge lore and background for the universe. That is exactly what has kept me interested for such a long time. Novels, tech documents and what have you. They all make the world so much more believable.

MWO does not really tap into that huge universe very well so far.

I feel MWO is catered toward the younger FPS crowd (dont get me wrong; younger and FPS crowd no not neccessarily go hand in hand all the time), perhaps to get more people familiar with the BT universe.

Eventhough Catalyst officially supports the title, for me it needs to become much more than just an arena style Mech vs Mech game to get me interested.

That said, if they do get around to the persistent world features they promised are in the works for post-release, I might be more interested.

Just my 2 cents.

I agree Yskonyn. This is exactly how I feel and why I created this post.

I so wanted somebody to say that MWonline is rich in mechwarrior lore if not in storyline. Sounds like it really is just unreal with mechs

Ah, vidoes from when Activision where good.

Anyway Des, the game is in closed beta for propably a couple of months more. Lots of stuff can be added before release.

Regarding story line there is news updates all the time on the webpage trying to set the mood i guess.

Gameplay got a good mechy feel to it. I think it is too early to be disappointed in the game. Unless you really only want MW5.

I hope they let everyone choose a side, in any 3025 territory cap campaign they add.  Just like the old (dead) 3025 online.

IIRC I was playing Steiner at the time.  Tons of fun, the fighting between factions.  It was surprisingly fairly balanced in the beta, aside from the expected higher population for Davion.  But Davion always seemed to get more attention from the lore in the first place so it was no surprise and they really didn't make much extra progress in world-capping anyway, considering their population advantage.

Now I'm gettin' misty thinking about it.  Hoping they follow through on a world-capping campaign map.

Yeah Davion would propably have the upperhand in manpower due to the lore. I've always prefered them myself but if i had to choose a faction on the spot i would go Kurita.

I signed up for the beta, but opted not to pony up founder for now.  What can it hurt right?

I guess I'll give it a try, but to be honest here I'm sick of the flight-simulator-on-the-ground games Mechwarrior actually are.  I would MUCH rather play a conversion of BattleTech from miniatures game to computer, and that hasn't been attempted since MechCommander.  That was a decent enough game, but it didn't exaclty do much with a multiplayer, where players dreamt of taking their best BattleTech lance online against others.  There's a reason the BattleTech tournaments at Origins and GenCon are still ultra popluar after all these years.

True, although MechCommander wasn't very much Battletech-like in terms of gameplay / rules. It was just an RTS game with Mechs IMHO. A fun one, don't get me wrong, but nowhere near an incarnation of a digital BT.

The only digital version of Battletech at this time is MegaMek. It follows and enforces the rules pretty well, but the AI is laughable (although being improved upon). Now this wasn't developped as a solitaire app, but a multiplayer one so its only commendable that they are in fact working on an AI at all.

Originally Posted By Blakjack (10 AUG 2012 6:19am)

I signed up for the beta, but opted not to pony up founder for now.  What can it hurt right?

 

I guess I'll give it a try, but to be honest here I'm sick of the flight-simulator-on-the-ground games Mechwarrior actually are.  I would MUCH rather play a conversion of BattleTech from miniatures game to computer, and that hasn't been attempted since MechCommander.  That was a decent enough game, but it didn't exaclty do much with a multiplayer, where players dreamt of taking their best BattleTech lance online against others.  There's a reason the BattleTech tournaments at Origins and GenCon are still ultra popluar after all these years.

 

Have you seen the Mechwarrior Tactics one that's coming out about the same time as MWO?

http://mwtactics.com

If you're looking for more of a tabletop conversion, that's the one for you.  To be honest, I'm looking forward to that one more than MWO at the moment (At least until MWO adds a solid strategic layer).  I wasn't too sure about the card/collector elements when it was first announced, but as they've gone through development, it's kind of grown on me.  Some of the re-designs are pretty ugly, but I can get past that if the gameplay is solid.  It has definite tournament possabilities, and they're talking about possibly adding something like "pink slip" matches where you could wager your cards or mechs.  One thing I really love about it is what looks like a huge variety of weapons.  Not just MLAS, SLAS, LRM, SRM, but adding in the different manufacturers so you can have a bunch of different kinds of SRM4s for instance.  That was something a lot of the fluff talked about, the differences in different manufacturers systems, but the games never really went into.  I think that's going to add a lot to the game.

Originally Posted By Spharv2 (10 AUG 2012 8:25am)

Originally Posted By Blakjack (10 AUG 2012 6:19am)

I signed up for the beta, but opted not to pony up founder for now.  What can it hurt right?

 

I guess I'll give it a try, but to be honest here I'm sick of the flight-simulator-on-the-ground games Mechwarrior actually are.  I would MUCH rather play a conversion of BattleTech from miniatures game to computer, and that hasn't been attempted since MechCommander.  That was a decent enough game, but it didn't exaclty do much with a multiplayer, where players dreamt of taking their best BattleTech lance online against others.  There's a reason the BattleTech tournaments at Origins and GenCon are still ultra popluar after all these years.

 

 

Have you seen the Mechwarrior Tactics one that's coming out about the same time as MWO?

 

http://mwtactics.com

 

If you're looking for more of a tabletop conversion, that's the one for you.  To be honest, I'm looking forward to that one more than MWO at the moment (At least until MWO adds a solid strategic layer).  I wasn't too sure about the card/collector elements when it was first announced, but as they've gone through development, it's kind of grown on me.  Some of the re-designs are pretty ugly, but I can get past that if the gameplay is solid.  It has definite tournament possabilities, and they're talking about possibly adding something like "pink slip" matches where you could wager your cards or mechs.  One thing I really love about it is what looks like a huge variety of weapons.  Not just MLAS, SLAS, LRM, SRM, but adding in the different manufacturers so you can have a bunch of different kinds of SRM4s for instance.  That was something a lot of the fluff talked about, the differences in different manufacturers systems, but the games never really went into.  I think that's going to add a lot to the game.

 

 

I hadn't heard of that.  It sounds much more like something I would enjoy than MWO.  Lore/story/atmosphere is what I'm looking for.

Originally Posted By Spharv2 (10 AUG 2012 8:25am)

 

 

Have you seen the Mechwarrior Tactics one that's coming out about the same time as MWO?

 

http://mwtactics.com

 

 

 

OOOoo!  Nice.

Sounds like a free-to-play CCG type of game.  Is that true?  You buy stuff with cash to use it or something?  Or does it all come in a single package?  Multi-player only?

I didn't see a "Features" section on their site, so I'm bothering you.

That is indeed an interesting title.

It seems (from the screenies only) though that there is no 'heat' system in the game. A pretty significant gameplay aspect of the BT game. But that's just from scouring the screenshots, which are few and far apart by all means. So I could be very well completely wrong. 

Still it does seem like a very enjoyable game. Certainly something to keep an eye on!

There will be an AI, they said you'll generally play your first few battles against it most likely, and I suppose it'll be there for roflstomping later, but (don't quote me on this) I think the rewards are reduced for AI battles.  

The card aspect is something like Magic (Never actually played it, just going by reputation).  You get a free starter set and then you can either play and earn money to pay for the varying levels of new sets, or you can pay actual cash to buy them.  Nobody is too sure exactly what the cards will consist of yet.  I think base chassis, weapons, tech items, maybe pilot abilities or tactics or something.  They do the same rare/exceptional/common tiering that all of those types of games do.

You play online, and can have as many games going as you have lances for.  That leads to the only bad thing I've heard so far, and that's that it's limited to lance on lance currently, but they do plan to expand that at some point...the ever elusive "After launch".

But, the single BEST thing, is that you're starting in the 3025 era.  Back when tech was balanced and the clans were still over 2 decades away.

And if that isn't enough mech-ing for you, there are two other games in development at the moment.  Though, based solely on the info that's been put out, neither are as close as MWO and MWT:

Mechwarrior Tactical Command for iOS:

http://www.mechwarriortc.com/index.html

Not much info, but it looks like a bit of an iOS Mechassault type thing.

And Solaris Assault Tech:

http://www.moddb.com/games/solaris-assault-tech

Which seems to be just as it sounds, a Solaris simulator where you can pop in to watch other people battle, or fight yourself.  Honestly, though, I haven't seen anything in the way of updating or news anywhere on this one, so I'm not holding my breath.  Both are from MekTek though, so I'm not giving up hope.

spharv2 thx. But I have no interest in the MAC world and am also not interested in pure artificial gladiatorial match ups.

Open Beta for Mechwarrior Online starts this afternoon.

It's essentially the official launch, albeit of a stress-testing sort I'm sure.  Because they said there will be no more beta wipes.

I've been keeping tabs on this title, but the more I read about it the more I am convinced this isn't my cup of tea.

I absolutely LOVE the Battletech universe and the tabletop game and I also loved the Mechwarrior games for the PC, but this is just too limited in my view.

I do not care for an arena match based Mech' game, especially not if there is not going to be any story or AI to play against.

I just feels like a multiplayer shooter which happens to feature Mechs. Not at all a Mech simulator.

Too bad, but I've already got more than enough games asking for my time, so I can do without this one I guess.

Just wish it had a single-player campaign. Geez.....