Topic: FASA dude talks on 1UP Yours podcast...Mechwarrior 5?

[idolminds]

Newest podcast. Jump to 33 minutes for the start of him yaking. Little Crimson Skies stuff, then he chats a bit about Mechwarrior, and on to Shadowrun junk.

[MysterD]

We need Mechwarrior 5.
And a Mercenaries edition, too.

[idolminds]

I'm just got to the Shadowrun bit. Sounds like its going to be total shit on PC. "Halo with gadgets"...everything is geared for playing with a controller and PC play feels "off". Sounds like it'll be great for 360, but the PC version will be bargain binned quickly since it's going up against fricking UT3, Quake Wars and shit.

[idolminds]

Really long podcast. 90 minute mark and they are still talking shadowrun. The guy does a good job of making it sound interesting with all the powers and such. It's a shame that they are doing the cross platform play. If it was tweaked to more PC specific play (let us keybind all the powers at once, dont do the slow/floaty movement)...it would be pretty kickass.

Wonder if they will allow modding (due to the cross platformyness)...if a mod team was able to tweak it it could be a fun game.

[gpw11]

Man, the SNES and Genesis versions of Shadowrun were great.  Too bad they don't do something more like that.

And what'd they say about Crimson Skies?  New one coming out?

[idolminds]

He mentions the team that made Crimson Skies "defected" and formed a new studio, but FASA still owns the Crimson Skies IP. From the sound of it they rent making a CS3 right now, but its probably going to happen at some point.

[MysterD]

All I know is I need clunky feeling, bulky mechs so I can blow up other mechs.
I miss those MechWarrior 2: Mercs days....

Forget speed; that'll feel more like a damn FPS. Gimme slow ass mechs that do heavy damage and move slow -- and you can actually feel it!

[MysterD]

Mechwarrior 5 rumors floating around.
So are new teaser trailers.

IGN is going to post an interview with Piranha Games and Smith & Tinker (who bought MW License, some time ago) to discuss everything.

[sirean_syan]

First Details.

My thoughts? It could work and if the video is proof it looks like they get how mech combat should work in Battletech. Things are slow and small movements make a bit difference. I like it. They're trying to walk a fine line between MechAssault and the original Mechwarriors and that's okay. You don't need a billion controls to be a sim if the pacing and mechanics are in the right place. If they can pull this off, they did good in my eyes. The best quote from the piece (see bellow) shows that they've got the right mindset going in:

The end statement that I've been running with is that I really like the sound of is that we don't want the player to feel like they're the mech; we want the player to feel like the driver inside the mech. So everything is about the player experience, you're actually inside that cockpit and driving it, so we'd like to do that better than any of the past games.

There's also talk of how mechs should be very valuable and that you might not necessarily destroy them at first site. Instead, you'll see mechs throughout the campaign and if you manage to take one down it'll be a major victory. That's really close to the source materials view on mechs and could pull off stuff even better than the original Mechwarriors.

Overall, I'm cautiously optimistic. There's a lot of good stuff being brought up and now that I see what they have in mind with the overall package I like the direction they seem to be taking it. Now I just have to wait two years.

[sirean_syan]

This again?

I thought this whole deal had been settled years ago and resulted in changed designs in several old Battletech mechs (which included one of the designs in the trailer). If Harmony Gold had a problem with the new design, they had almost a decade to stir up trouble as the new design has been sold for the tabletop version of the game for a good chunk of time now. Given that there was a legal deal in the first place, I'd assume that Harmony Gold would have watched the what sort of changes were made in the designs.

[Quemaqua]

Ugh, fuck Robotech.  That's really all I can muster right now.

[sirean_syan]

Necroboot of maximum bootiness.

It lives again!

... although not quite like I would have imagined (or maybe wanted). It's a free to play mmo now which will go through the Battletech universe in real time. That is, a day of MMO time will reflect an actual day in the Battletech history. Keep in mind, there's something like 50 years of really meaty time in the universe, although this will start in the middle of that.

Still, it's interesting. This isn't the first time Battletech has done this. There was a free to play MMO that EA put out almost a decade ago when they decided to make a series of smaller more arcady MMOs that one fee would give you access to. The game took place in the "earlier" parts of the universe and wasn't actually terrible. It had fairly decent mechanics and really went for the slow tank take on the mechs. It worked by having everyone join one of five major factions and allowing you to jump into some warzone on a galactic map. If a side managed to win a warzone after a series of 4 on 4 battles, they would move further into the other's territory. Theoretically, a side could lose all their territory and homeworld but I don't think that ever actually happened. It never made it out of the beta stage (I think the entire MMO project was scrapped), but I liked it well enough. It was pretty faithful to the old parts of the universe and tabletop rules than Mechwarrior 3 or 4.

But yeah, I'm not sure what to think. It's hard for me to get behind a free to play game that will probably be all microtransactioned to hell, but there are signs that the people behind it actually care about what Battletech is. For example:

Q. Will LRMs in MechWarrior® Online™ be guided or unguided?
A. LRMs will be semi-guided. What the heck does that mean? You will be able to lock on to your target but it doesn't mean the actual missiles will home directly to the target. The chance of missing will still be part of LRM gameplay. Use of the Artemis IV system and subsequent munitions, will narrow the area of damage by focusing the flight paths of the missiles. We're finding that this is a good balance between gameplay and staying true to the BattleTech canon.

Q. Will the unseen Mechs make it into the game after all?
A. Look forward to a future announcement.

If they're putting stuff like that in the FAQ, they're actually thinking about fans of the universe who go back way further than Mechassault or the last Mechwarriors. That has to be a good thing.