I want a massively multiplayer Mechwarrior game...

There won't be much depth to it i'm afraid. We'll have to see how Huxley does first before we'll be able to see if this idea's feasible.

As it is, the game would only qualify as a good online game with persistent stats ala BattleField. But i wouldn't count on it being successful if it were to try going massively online.

At most, it'll probably be something like quildwars. With space stations or dropships acting as staging areas for missions.
 
I don't see why it would be any harder to develop than your standard fantasy MMORPG.

The different factions from Eve Online could easily translate into the different houses for a MechWarrior game, and the developers would just have to spend some extra time creating the landscapes for the various planets. Space travel has been done in MMORPGs, land based combat has been done as well, and customizing your mech shouldn't be any different than upgrading equipment/stats in current games, so, it's just a matter of combining all three.

Ranks in the various houses could be handled just like positions in guilds, all in all, why isn't it feasible?

AOL had a very fun MechWarrior pseudo-MMORPG out years ago called Mechwarrior: Solaris. There wasn't much in the way of graphics other than the battle arenas, but if they could do that 5+ years ago, I am sure a full out game could be done now.
 
NulloModo said:
I don't see why it would be any harder to develop than your standard fantasy MMORPG.

The different factions from Eve Online could easily translate into the different houses for a MechWarrior game, and the developers would just have to spend some extra time creating the landscapes for the various planets. Space travel has been done in MMORPGs, land based combat has been done as well, and customizing your mech shouldn't be any different than upgrading equipment/stats in current games, so, it's just a matter of combining all three.

Ranks in the various houses could be handled just like positions in guilds, all in all, why isn't it feasible?

AOL had a very fun MechWarrior pseudo-MMORPG out years ago called Mechwarrior: Solaris. There wasn't much in the way of graphics other than the battle arenas, but if they could do that 5+ years ago, I am sure a full out game could be done now.
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A large part of MMORPG's is the ability to socialize. Mechwarrior may be customizable, but a very large part of it consists of mech battles. No Mechwarrior game has ever had the player take control of a soldier. He's always strapped to a mech, and then thrown into battle.

Imagine a guy traveling from town to town peddling his wares and occationally conversing with the populace. Something that's become traditional in MMORPG's. Can you picture that being done with 50 foot robot? Socializing has never been part of the mechwarrior universe.

In order to be able to interact the way you're proposing, they will have to add elements that are alien to mechwarrior. Or you will only be able to converse with others through complex menus once you're docked. Essentially turning it into a text based MMORPG rather than a 3D one.
 
Are you kidding me?! The possibilities for player-player interaction are fuckin' endless! Think of all the classes from the MechWarrior pen & paper game: MechWarriors, Aerospace pilots, techs, infantry, mercenaries, elementals, merchants, etc etc. Hell, have the developers act as "gamemasters", controlling the leaders of the Houses and Clans, or heading up the many different mercenary units (Eridani Lighthorse, Wolf's Dragoons, Kell Hounds), controlling the game from the point of view of their faction, launching invasions, hiring the mercenary units...God, I'd lose my job AND my wife if a game like that came out. Don't make this game!

Jesus I was such a B-Tech nerd growing up*. The thought of actually seeing the world I was role-playing in makes me go a big rubbery one.

*But I still got laid though. Gotta throw in the disclaimer.
 
Exactly, you can't think of Mechwarrior just from the PC games, you have to think of it growing out of the pen and paper series that started it.

Allow characters to swear allegiance to one of the houses, rank up through service in battle and as they get command status, by leading their lance or whatnot well. Develop the political system and make it important for players to play along with how someone in their position would react to orders from up above in order to advance, loyalty and good service could lead them to being in that position themself later on.

Each character would have a regular humanoid avatar, and could just get into the mech availible for a given situation. Defeated enemy units could be salvaged for parts, and working for a house could give a player greater access to technology than someone who was just out as a mercenary.
 
I've about to release it next month for $30 a week subscription fee.


In all honesty this would be a fantastic idea if done right.
 
Exactly, it'll be more like Guildwars where each town is more like a staging area rather than an MMORPG.

Much of the MechWarrior fanbase came from the 3D simulator era (BattleTech pods go way back too), change it back to the old paper and pen game (We have those here too) and it won't be the same mechwarrior anymore. If you were to make it any more complex than it has to be, would there be enough fanbase left to support it?
 
it could be similar to auto assault.

that one has cars out of town, and while in town you are out of your car and can walk around to shops and such. i quite like that game, and once some bugs are ironed out, ill probabbly go back.
 
Sly said:
Exactly, it'll be more like Guildwars where each town is more like a staging area rather than an MMORPG.

Much of the MechWarrior fanbase came from the 3D simulator era (BattleTech pods go way back too), change it back to the old paper and pen game (We have those here too) and it won't be the same mechwarrior anymore. If you were to make it any more complex than it has to be, would there be enough fanbase left to support it?
Click to expand...

Cities/Planets could be like staging areas, but they could also come up with a means of 3D interactive travel between them, even if it isn't a situation where you could be shot at at any time.

Complicated is good, and more depth and complexity are what MMORPGs need. Right now look at FFXI, WoW, Guild Wars, Everquest, etc, they are nothing more than hack and slash, collect items, repeat, experiences. There is very little to no actual role playing going on because there is no real incentive for it. MMORPGs would be quite a bit more interesting if the players themselves stayed in character, had incentive to play their characters role, and helped evolve the story as it went.
 
this would be easy to turn into an MMORPG. with houses/clans you would need to secure funding to arm/run your mechs, you can stage assaults and defenses of planets like in SWG. There woud be so many options for professions as well. I bet you could (if you wanted to) not even pilot a mech and instead become a merchant selling parts and stuff to mechwarriors. You could also do salvage operations, etc, etc.. i see the possibilities as endless.
 
@andypnb
Interesting, i'll have to look that up.

@NulloModo
The big question, even if it's pretty basic :p If there was a mechwarrior MMORPG, would it be better as 3rd person or first person?

I had a long list of arguments, but i realized a lot of it would be answered when Huxley comes out. I'll have to look into Huxleys game mechanics first, see how it tackled the issues.



<--Stuff i want-->
1. Ability to salvage and buy parts, then being able to build another mech.
2. Ability to hire a mercenary AI so you'll make good use of that extra mech. Or better yet, loan it to a newbie so he wouldn't have to make do with a 10 tonner starter mech.
3. Ability to drop into a 'hot-zone'

Just wishful thinking. The game mechanics needed to implement these has too many complications. Again, i'll have to look into Huxley.
 
ScotteusMaximus said:
how badass would that be? think about it...
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It would be, but they don't have the tech to do it... YET. I have to say, I hated MW4, but loved MW3 and previous. I want my mechlab back!
 
The series went to crap with the release of Mechwarrior 4. I played Mech 2 & 3 all the time, 3 being the best. I played 4 and all everyone does is stock up on missiles and hide behind hills and do jump shots. It sux.
 
Some of what your asking has been around in one form or another for years now. EGA MPBT on GEnie network based on the first mechwarrior game engine, then SVGA MPBT that moved to AOL for a bit then to gamestorm, there are several projects out there now being worked on.

Some info on ISwars
http://www.battletechmodproductions.com/smag/smag05/smag05.shtml
http://www.iswars.com/

And a second group creating another battletech game.
http://www.is3025.com/

The first one you can play right now i believe. My old unit is playing at any rate and i plan on getting on this weekend.

Not sure if these will match up to what some of you want but they are all you are likely to get.
 
Parker said:
The series went to crap with the release of Mechwarrior 4. I played Mech 2 & 3 all the time, 3 being the best. I played 4 and all everyone does is stock up on missiles and hide behind hills and do jump shots. It sux.
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In MW4 mercenaries, especially the MekTek servers, Novacat whores are a rarity for some reason.

Marauder Rules! I found another marauder pilot one time and we decided to team up. We kept flanking the other team and picking them off from the side. The firepower from two marauders makes quick work of most mechs, the oversized arms also helps protect the torso, not to mention they're pretty fast movers. Talk about pwnage :D

One thing i'm amazed at. Is the rarity of leggers. People actually go out of their way so as not to accidentally leg you. :) Hopefully, this kind of honor system doesn't get contaminated by punks if it ever goes massive.
 
I don't think it would work too well. How do you model a war where everyone wants to be a general and rambo at the same time?
 
Sly said:
One thing i'm amazed at. Is the rarity of leggers. People actually go out of their way so as not to accidentally leg you. :) Hopefully, this kind of honor system doesn't get contaminated by punks if it ever goes massive.
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Why? I've rarely played MW online but why not shoot the legs out from under them? If it's a weak point and players are purposely not armoring their legs then it should be taken advantage of. I thought the point of a battle was to take advantage of your strengths while exploiting the weakenesses of your enemy to win.
 
Parker said:
The series went to crap with the release of Mechwarrior 4. I played Mech 2 & 3 all the time, 3 being the best. I played 4 and all everyone does is stock up on missiles and hide behind hills and do jump shots. It sux.
Click to expand...


See I thought Mechwarrior 4 was great! 3 was a big piece of corn-filled shit.
 
Sly said:
One thing i'm amazed at. Is the rarity of leggers. People actually go out of their way so as not to accidentally leg you. :) Hopefully, this kind of honor system doesn't get contaminated by punks if it ever goes massive.
Click to expand...

Not sure if I agree with your last sentence. Lots of games give you a 'headshot', why wouldn't a 'legshot' be about the same thing. Maybe turn the legshot into something more disabling than destroying the mech. Obviously your speed would go down to almost zilch and your turning ability would suck; whatever you might put in the two leg slots would be useless, etc... not just take out a leg, knock you over, period, you're done. Gotta be some kind of compromise.
 
This would be worse than crack.
would love to see it done...right.
Life would be over for me.
 
CopyThat said:
This would be worse than crack.
would love to see it done...right.
Life would be over for me.
Click to expand...
"done...right", the strongest qualifier know to the fan of anything. I agree with you.
 
Sly said:
A large part of MMORPG's is the ability to socialize. Mechwarrior may be customizable, but a very large part of it consists of mech battles. No Mechwarrior game has ever had the player take control of a soldier. He's always strapped to a mech, and then thrown into battle.

Imagine a guy traveling from town to town peddling his wares and occationally conversing with the populace. Something that's become traditional in MMORPG's. Can you picture that being done with 50 foot robot? Socializing has never been part of the mechwarrior universe.

In order to be able to interact the way you're proposing, they will have to add elements that are alien to mechwarrior. Or you will only be able to converse with others through complex menus once you're docked. Essentially turning it into a text based MMORPG rather than a 3D one.
Click to expand...


um social... do you think mech pilots sit int hier mech all day waiting for combat no. they probly spend alot of time at the BAR or other places on space stations or citys. and if your a mercenary you could go out an wreak havok. i havnt played a Mech game in ages but i could see it as a mmo. it would be more entertaining than killing goblins.
 
Legging is considered bad form by many old school battletech people because it was for the most part not possible to do in the tabletop game. It was simply not possible for a mech to target a specific location with any reasonable chance of success under most conditions.
 
Seelenlos said:
Legging is considered bad form by many old school battletech people because it was for the most part not possible to do in the tabletop game. It was simply not possible for a mech to target a specific location with any reasonable chance of success under most conditions.
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Even if it's not true to the tabletop game, it seems a shame for people to feel the need to avoid a strategy in the PC version. After all, both sides of the battle have equal tools available to them, so it's not like it gives an advantage to one team.
 
Seelenlos said:
Legging is considered bad form by many old school battletech people because it was for the most part not possible to do in the tabletop game. It was simply not possible for a mech to target a specific location with any reasonable chance of success under most conditions.
Click to expand...

That's really only the case when using 3025 BT rules - as soon as the clans showed up it was reasonably easy to knock out legs using targetting computers (I played tons of BT in highschool. Some of the hit charts are still ingrained in my mind...it's sad, really).


 
There was an MMO mechwarrior game, called Battletech: 3025. Unfortunately, the project got canned by EA even though they were in the public beta testing stage. Though the battles were limited to 4vs4, the developers were really able to capture the feeling that you were in a virtual war.

http://pc.ign.com/objects/014/014050.html

Another reason to dislike EA.
 
Oh i agree if the game allows something its valid. Just pointing out why people feel that way.

EA messed that up big time, so many things promised and only 10% made it into what they delivered.
 
Seelenlos said:
Legging is considered bad form by many old school battletech people because it was for the most part not possible to do in the tabletop game. It was simply not possible for a mech to target a specific location with any reasonable chance of success under most conditions.
Click to expand...

The problem, as I see it, with this argument is that while legging wasn't possible in the original BT, it also was highly unlikely anyone would run around with low leg armor. Since people are already violating the BT concept by skimping on leg armor why shouldn't others violate the concept by targetting legs.

In addition, in MW-PC you HAVE to target something. That was not the case in BT, where you simply targeted the entire mech most of the time. So you are really comparing apples to oranges.
 
Planetside???

It was a realy fun game and I am not sure how it is doing now, but it seemed to be in it's deaththrows earlier in the year.

It seems to be a couple of things that are/did kill(ing) it.
- Very buggy at first.
- $12 a month and then you need to buy the expansion packs if you want to cool new stuff. While this is acceptable to the MMORPG crowd, the FPS crowd wasent to pleased with that.
- The flying vehicles are crap.

I still think they have a month trial.. give it a try..
 
Forget Mechwarrior.

HEAVY

GEAR

I'd KILL for another Heavy Gear game. Heavy Gear II was all kinds of awesome and was a blast to play online.
 
moetop said:
Planetside???

It was a realy fun game and I am not sure how it is doing now, but it seemed to be in it's deaththrows earlier in the year.

It seems to be a couple of things that are/did kill(ing) it.
- Very buggy at first.
- $12 a month and then you need to buy the expansion packs if you want to cool new stuff. While this is acceptable to the MMORPG crowd, the FPS crowd wasent to pleased with that.
- The flying vehicles are crap.

I still think they have a month trial.. give it a try..
Click to expand...


Planetside is free now with some limitations(go to www.planetside.com and click on "reserves")... It has plenty of mechs(BFRs), but they are for homos. Also there is only one expansion so it's pack not packs. If you were to pay for the game instead of getting a free account the version of planetside they sell now is called "Aftershock" and it includes the core combat expansion so you don't need to buy it seperately.
 
WuTangClam said:
There was an MMO mechwarrior game, called Battletech: 3025. Unfortunately, the project got canned by EA even though they were in the public beta testing stage. Though the battles were limited to 4vs4, the developers were really able to capture the feeling that you were in a virtual war.

http://pc.ign.com/objects/014/014050.html

Another reason to dislike EA.
Click to expand...

That was such a sweet game...I wasted hundreds of hours playing it.

 
Sly said:
A large part of MMORPG's is the ability to socialize. Mechwarrior may be customizable, but a very large part of it consists of mech battles. No Mechwarrior game has ever had the player take control of a soldier. He's always strapped to a mech, and then thrown into battle.

Imagine a guy traveling from town to town peddling his wares and occationally conversing with the populace. Something that's become traditional in MMORPG's. Can you picture that being done with 50 foot robot? Socializing has never been part of the mechwarrior universe.

In order to be able to interact the way you're proposing, they will have to add elements that are alien to mechwarrior. Or you will only be able to converse with others through complex menus once you're docked. Essentially turning it into a text based MMORPG rather than a 3D one.
Click to expand...

That is the way the original games were. Battletech series was just that. You had to earn money to buy your mech. You battled in arena's and won money. When you headed out from town to town, you would encounter other mechs and fight them and then salvage the leftovers. You investigated things to try to find out what happened and to figure things out. It was a great role playing game. It had an awesome story behind it. Really sucked me in.

Here is a link
http://www.lemon64.com/index.php?mainurl=http://www.lemon64.com/reviews/view.php?id=549

If a MMORPG came out, I fear I would be sucked into it.
 
WuTangClam said:
There was an MMO mechwarrior game, called Battletech: 3025. Unfortunately, the project got canned by EA even though they were in the public beta testing stage. Though the battles were limited to 4vs4, the developers were really able to capture the feeling that you were in a virtual war.

http://pc.ign.com/objects/014/014050.html

Another reason to dislike EA.
Click to expand...

I was in that beta, canceling it was one of the few good things EA has done. I love BT, in the past playing the boardgame lots and the PC games too. The concept of it being online was neat in EA's version, but the implementation was so so so bad, it was just horrible and there was nothing they could do to fix it.
 
in addition to all the cool stuff everybody's already mentioned, imagine the possibilities as far as mission objectives and design go. someone said that mechwarrior wouldn't provide much in the way of depth, but i can't even begin to count the number of "bring me x goblin ears" or "kill y rats" quests i did in all the hours i played WoW.

if they had instanced missions, imagine being able to attack the objectives using your own squad tactics. after the initial tactics are figured out in a regular MMO, how many boss fights become boring and routine? some of them are pretty cool, but how many times have you just sat there spamming heals or doing the same moves over and over?

imagine the PvP possibilities. for all the people who say that PvP in a game like WoW is too carebear, they could have servers where it's more like UO, or where you have a random chance of dropping part of your mech if you lose in a PvP situation. massive battles like planetside or DaoC would be so awesome, but i can see some sort of limitation as far as bandwidth goes.

hell even something simple like item drops would make more sense. what is a big ass dragon doing carrying a sword and armor? maybe the dragon ate someone wearing them, but where did they originally get them? at least picking up armor or weapon upgrades for your mech would make sense if you're attacking a supply convoy or something, or salvaging parts from an enemy mech.
 
I would loooooooove to see a mechwarrior game.

However if it'd work I'd like to see it stick to Player skill > any kind of "lv/uber item" bullshit that most mmo's do.

I love to take peoples legs out from under them and watch their mech come crashing to the ground.

I'd love to be able to get in/out of mechs and have mulitple ones, with being able to join the clans/rise in ranks and all that kind of stuff.
 
Sly said:
1st or 3rd person?
Click to expand...
Why not a little of both?
There could be pilots, and also a command position that can give orders to the pilots. It could give a new twist to team competition.
 
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