So the recent downtrend in console hardware/software sales has seen an uptick in PC hardware and game sales*, which is awesome, because that means two things, generally:

One, lots of free to play communities are growing strong, which is a great trend that I support wholeheartedly when it's done correctly, since it allows greater developer freedom and helps build a community that's easy to expand.

Two, games which offer a little more depth than most console-fair, and lots of content without the cuts due to technological limitations.

So what does that mean, exactly?  Much as I love some franchises on consoles and handhelds, certain types of genres just don't fit well.  Like most action sims.  They tend get watered down or just turned into badly designed action games, like the MechAssault series, or nearly any WWII flight game.

Thankfully, Mechwarrior is back on the PC, and this time it's returned with full mech customization, persistent stat/equipment/faction tracking (eventually), and gorgeous visuals via the Crytek engine.  It's also playable with m/kb or gamepad/joystick, so you could really get your jollies on and get a full HOTAS setup, or even construct your own cockpit, like this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8syLTVXxIU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTfaomwVUzg

Anyone playing?  Got a callsign?  Not sure if they've got an in-game buddy system worked out yet, but on the community forums I'm LincolnSmash.

You can sign up for the Beta, but I believe it releases to the public sometime in August.  If you want access now, you can buy a Founder's Pack (30, 60, or 120 bucks) and they'll give you instant access.




*Let's be honest, though.  Most of those software sales are Diablo III.


*edit*
Founder's pack prices were misremembered by me.  Corrected.

More detailed post with an overview Mechwarrior gameplay coming up soon.

I didn't even know this existed, until yesterday, when a friend posted a screenshot on FB and damn, it is pretty.

What's gameplay like? Can you give us a general overview? (Never played any of the Mechwarrior or Mech Assault games)

I just peed a little.

EDIT: Oh it's a "free-2-play" game. I'll give it a shot, but if it's a situation where "he who pays the most wins the most" I probably will cry myself to sleep and be butthurt.

Quote from: The Butcher;565224I didn't even know this existed, until yesterday, when a friend posted a screenshot on FB and damn, it is pretty.

What's gameplay like? Can you give us a general overview? (Never played any of the Mechwarrior or Mech Assault games)

Sorry for the delay!  Working loads of overtime this week.

Basically, giant fusion-powered walking tanks with pivoting torsos that fire lasers, ballistics, and missiles, and a load of lore and setting elements.

Expanded version:

Ok.  So, I'm not sure how familiar you are with Battletech, but Jeff Rients (I think?) has a great blog post about what makes Btech and the Star Trek board-games so great, and for Btech it applies to the PC games as well.  Basically, heat.  Prettymuch all games have some set of core resources you're managing throughout play.  For Btech, the core resource you have to manage really isn't ammo or anything like that (though you do manage them as well), but heat.  Lots of games have vehicles with super-powerful weapons, but in Btech, that power is balanced by an inability to keep firing them off.  Every time you fire lasers/missiles, you're generating loads of heat.  Some weapons don't generate much, if any, heat, but those are usually weaker or are limited in ammo capacity for game-balance reasons.  

To counteract this, each mech has things called heat-sinks.  These help dissipate heat faster so that you can continue to use your mech without it overheating and shutting down, or, in worse cases, ammo exploding internally due to heat, or your mech just going critical and exploding.  To make this more interesting, different environmental conditions will affect how your mech handles heat.  Ice planets will allow you to operate longer without a ton of heat build-up, while desert planets will mean you really have to watch how you're using your weapon systems.

In addition, each mech is customizable within certain limitations.  There are four general classes of mechs (not counting specials): Light, Medium, Heavy, and Assault.  Generally the heavier your mech is, the more you're sacrificing speed for armor and how many weapons and systems you can pack on.  Each mech has a max tonnage it can carry and still be operable.  Hardpoints are spread throughout the mech, and depending on what type of hardpoint it is, you can equip weapons, heat-sinks, ammunition storage, or various subsystems (frex, anti-missile, systems that make you harder to detect via radar, etc.).  You can also tweak how much armor your mech has, as well as how powerful it's engine is, so you can sacrifice armor or speed for more weapons/heatsinks.  Besides all these customizable subsystems, each mech comes with things like night vision, thermal vision, and other standard sensors to help out in different environmental conditions.

Play is objective-based, so you've got two teams attacking eachother's bases, fighting over a critical objective, or in the past, escorting convoys and such.  Right now it seems like matches are limited to "Kill all enemies or occupy their base for a certain period of time."

Ideally, though, all of this adds up to really interesting matches with different types of team compositions -- people playing scouts and tagging enemy mechs for their team, missile-boats in the back firing salvos from 1000m away, and heavy and assault mechs duking it out in the middle of the battlefield.  When I used to play in clans in Mech4, we'd to come up with standard designs for our clan to use and lay out different team configurations to counter-act the fighting styles of other groups.  The game also gives you a lot of lonely-fun for downtime between matches with all of the customization, and a lot of enjoyment can be had just testing out different ideas for designs and seeing how they perform.

Kinda wordy, but I hope that gives a general idea of what makes Mechwarrior tick.

Quote from: Peregrin;565112Thankfully, Mechwarrior is back on the PC, and this time it's returned with full mech customization, persistent stat/equipment/faction tracking (eventually), and gorgeous visuals via the Crytek engine.  It's also playable with m/kb or gamepad/joystick, so you could really get your jollies on and get a full HOTAS setup, or even construct your own cockpit, like this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8syLTVXxIU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTfaomwVUzg

:jaw-dropping:

I am never leaving my house again.

It looks a lot like Mechwarrior II, but prettier.


I LOVED Mechwarrior II

Quote from: Sacrosanct;575873It looks a lot like Mechwarrior II, but prettier.

I LOVED Mechwarrior II

MechWarrior III was pretty damn good, too, but it was the last good one.  The game went to shit when Microsoft took it over.

I liked 4, especially Mercs.  Better netcode and better balance.

2 is my favorite for campaign play.  3 I couldn't get into.

Quote from: Peregrin;575932I liked 4, especially Mercs.  Better netcode and better balance.

2 is my favorite for campaign play.  3 I couldn't get into.

MechWarrior 4 had good gameplay, I just couldn't handle the severe reduction in options.  Putting a machine gun on the lower leg mount is somewhat silly, but I prefer having silly options available rather than only having two or three hardpoints that can accept a 'projectile weapon'.

Personal choice, clearly, but I think the heart of the MechWarrior games was the unlimited customizability, even beyond what I recall was possible with the tabletop game.  I might be mis-remembering that, it has been quite a while.

The tabletop game had varying levels of customizability, but was generally more strict than Mech 2 or 3.

Personally I prefer hardpoints limited by weapon type, since I think it makes for more interesting decision points when you're coming up with a team composition of mechs.  Though I guess that could be more fun with Battletech, where you're in charge of an entire team and not just one mech.

Quote from: Peregrin;576497The tabletop game had varying levels of customizability, but was generally more strict than Mech 2 or 3.

I suspected as much.  All that math would make the mini-game of customizing take a magnitude of order longer than just playing.

QuotePersonally I prefer hardpoints limited by weapon type, since I think it makes for more interesting decision points when you're coming up with a team composition of mechs.  Though I guess that could be more fun with Battletech, where you're in charge of an entire team and not just one mech.

I can see that.  It even makes more sense, really.  Stringing an ammo belt down to the lower leg hardpoint would be a pretty intensive operation, and not something one would 'standardize' ahead of time.

I just like stripping down a 50 ton frame and jamming the largest engine possible in there to have a 300kph Mech.  

Is this game fer real?

Dang; played the hell out of the boardgame back in the day.

p.s. Any idea on what PC specs are needed to push this game?  I've trolled through their forum just now and didn't find any info, but I'll keep digging.  I want a Warhammer so bad...

Quote from: Danger;578590Is this game fer real?

Dang; played the hell out of the boardgame back in the day.

p.s. Any idea on what PC specs are needed to push this game?  I've trolled through their forum just now and didn't find any info, but I'll keep digging.  I want a Warhammer so bad...

Per the FAQ, there are no official system requirements at this time.

It uses the Crytek 3 Engine, so you can probably use that to judge whether your PC can handle it.

That looks like alot of fun. I've been enjoying Dungeons and Dragons Online's free-to-play offerings for the last three years, so my appitite is whetted for yet another F2P game based on fantastic tabletop games.
 
My favorite part of Mechwarrior was limping around after chunks got blown off. There's not enough games where you can fight and be dismembered simultaniously.

Heh.

One of the "house-rules," we came up with that when all is said and done, and your 'mech is so much smoking and twisted metal, if the cockpit is still intact and your pilot is still alive then they have a man portable SRM-2 by which they can still carry the fight; got the rules for this thing in some supplement or another so it was roughly cannon, I guess.

Stupid rule?  Yes.  Appropriate for teenage males?  Yes.

Best game where this was implemented was when me and my buddy both had their respective 'mechs shot out from under them.  While in spitting distance, we both popped the hatches, stepped out and promptly blew each other to bits (straight-up rolls - couldn't ask for a better result).

The "Solaris 7," rules-set amped our games to new levels of crazy.  Love me some Battletech, yo.