Mechwarrior Online (Previously MW5/MW3015)

[Merad]

Pretty sure a timberwolf the clan name for "mad cat". If this is set at the time of the clan invasions then for sure it'll be there, as its one of the more iconic mechs that's on like, every single battletech box.

*nitpick*

Its name is the Timberwolf. Ignorant freebirths made up the stupid name MadCat because the true name was too awesome.

 

[Patterner]

Already done, Daishi.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I got into Battletech/MechWarrior when the 1989 video game came out. That game actually required you to learn a lot of the lore to actually even find the single player story. Otherwise after playing for a while you would get an in game email (before e-mail even really existed) saying that you had been ultimately found guilty in absence for your crimes against your family and the Federated Suns. A fact that you wouldn't even know about if you didn't read a separate letter that was included in the game box....

Anyway, I started reading the novels at that time. And played a few rounds of the tabletop game with some friends. It was a little bit of a shock for me when they advanced the years ahead and then started the whole clan invasion, but I have to admit that was an awesome change. An animated TV series came out at that time which closely followed the major storylines in the novels showing the beginning of the clan invasion (I can't remember how far the series went since I never saw them all, and they were always out of order just like any other animated show in the US since to the TV execs at the time it was just a kids show with no actual deeper storyline, just episodic like Tom and Jerry, or The Jetsons). This was right at the time of MW2 coming out (yeah, MechWarrior 2, the real MW2, not "Modern Warfare 2").

I own/borrow/read every book in the Clan invasion/FedCom war time period. I also read all but the last 4 or 5 books in the Dark Ages line (for those that don't know, they jumped ahead in time again, this time 90 years from the last book in the FedCom war). The problem that happened in the universe is that mechs became too common, so that was part of the reason for the jump in time. Mechs were rare again after so many years of peace and prosperity. The factories were most all decommissioned or destroyed by the events that occurred. Basically, it was a good move for the board game and storylines as well. Unfortunately, at that same time FASA had been sold to Wizkids, and then Wizkids started going and did go bankrupt, and so everything pretty much ended at that point. I am glad that the original creators of Battletech were able to re-aquire the IP rights and have started to bring it back again.


So, in other words, I have 20+ years in this

 

[Merad]

I never could get into the Dark Age stuff at all.

 

[sigurros81]

Man, I want a Mechwarrior game with an awesome singleplayer campaign, if not a cooperative campaign. I've always been fascinated by the Battletech universe and the stories. Activision's Mechwarrior 2 games were awesome. For the time, the games did a great job at immersing you into the stories and the missions were damn fun.

Edit: How awesome would it be to be able to play the campaign with 3 of your friends, maybe through missions that branch depending on your actions.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Not sure if I said this on this thread or over in the forums for the new game, but I just wish they were able to keep Michael Stackpole more involved. I totally understand why he stopped dealing with Battletech/Mechwarrior novels after getting screwed over so many times by the publisher(s). But I think it was more his ideas and words which made it what it because. Heck, he pretty much did the entire Clan invasion storylines as well as the civil war storyline, and his characters that he created truly WERE the key figures in the entire universe, Kia Allard, Victor Steiner-Davion, Melissa Steiner, Phalen Kell/Wolf/Ward, Natasha Kerensky, Vladimir Ward...

 

[shortylickens]

DIBS ON MAD CAT!!!


:awe:

 

[Fallen Kell]

Man, I want a Mechwarrior game with an awesome singleplayer campaign, if not a cooperative campaign. I've always been fascinated by the Battletech universe and the stories. Activision's Mechwarrior 2 games were awesome. For the time, the games did a great job at immersing you into the stories and the missions were damn fun.

Edit: How awesome would it be to be able to play the campaign with 3 of your friends, maybe through missions that branch depending on your actions.

I 100% agree. But I think for that to happen, they needed to show that there was a fan base and an interest out there. The big studios just would not touch something which is a AAA or close to it in terms of production costs/values without feeling they have a good chance to make that money back. So, hopefully, if this game gets a lot of interest (which I think is another reason for the F2P model), they are then hoping to go back to the major publishers and say, hey, look there is a lot of interest for this IP. We want to make a more in-depth game based on it, with single player/co-op campaigns, and multiplayer conquest modes, and show them the numbers that they already are getting from this other game have a much better shot (again, assuming it is popular). So I really do wish them the best of luck, and I will try to support them as best I can, because I want that next game myself.

The issue they have had to deal with is the last few games based on battletech just tanked because Microsoft tried to dumb them down too much for their console(s). And because of those disasters, they had such a hard time trying to sell the idea of a new game to new publishers because the publishers were basically pointing to the disasters that MS made and said no way are we touching that because even Microsoft doesn't want to touch it anymore and they already own all the rights/etc., and have existing code and experience in that series and they don't want to make a new one, so why in the world should we risk giving you a loan to make this game?

PS: Oh and for those that didn't know, Battletech is how I got this screenname. Originally I was using Phalen Kell just like the character in the universe. But in an unrelated game, I kept dying all the time and falling to the ground, and since Phalen/Fallen are pretty close phonetically, the nickname stuck, and I changed it. Wow, I can't believe how long ago that was, must have been 1996 or 1997....

PSS: I think I need to get the last few books of the Dark Ages. All this talk has gotten me back into all again, and I just need to know how it ended...

 

[IGemini]

^^Phelan Kell's name by itself was an interesting foreshadow. Gaelic for "like a wolf."

Microsoft and WizKids/Topps violently raped the franchise. Dark Age was a terrible direction to take the novels and MechAssault was an inexcusable travesty. This new game is the first breath of fresh air in a decade.

If it's 3015, it's about 25 years too early for the Clan invasion. That'll put it late in the Third Succession War. I'd kinda like to see them go back further circa the Star League collapse aftermath through the first two Succession Wars. Maybe bring the naval parts into the mix. WarShips were pretty awesome pieces of lostech.

 

[Spydermag68]

I got into Battletech back in high school, a friend introduced me to the game.

When I went to college I meet a few people who played. I loved to play the clan mechs and would design my own forces. By the rules the clans had a 25% weight disadvantage to the IS. I really learned tactics and started winning games.

After a year of playing I came back and would trounce my friend at the game. Even after 10 years of not playing he will not play the table top game against me.

 

[shortylickens]

http://www.timdp.members.sonic.net/battletech/picture/MadCatColor72.jpg
http://camospecs.com/images/schemes/58_Pen_WIE_MadCat01.jpg
http://www.timdp.members.sonic.net/battletech/gallery/DunDraCon/MadCatAIintersection.jpg
http://camospecs.com/images/schemes/28_Hyena_DCRyukenNi_MadCatMkII_fr.jpg
http://www.timdp.members.sonic.net/battletech/gallery/TimMech/TDJadeFalconMadCat3.jpg
http://bidwicket.com/Item/C/Collect...f_Strike/46084_1M_MCT_V7_H_Mad_Cat_Mk_IV.JPEG
http://www.timdp.members.sonic.net/battletech/picture/MadCatLarge.jpg
http://www.solaris7.com/Images/TRO/BattleMechs/madcat.jpg
http://www.camospecs.com/images/schemes/61_Psycho_CDSRho_MadCatII2.jpg
http://www.voidgamers.com/images/data/photo/imagegallery/BLACKOPZ-MadCatMKIVmodFront.jpg

 

[krnmastersgt]

So I heard you like Mad Cats...

Am I the only fan of the Bushwhacker? At least the one I remember from MW3. Man did I love playing that game, makes me wish I knew where the hell it was.

 

[shortylickens]

Last I recall Bushwhacker is asymmetrical. That made it hard to load out how I like.

 

[Fallen Kell]

^^Phelan Kell's name by itself was an interesting foreshadow. Gaelic for "like a wolf."

You got it. All part of Michael Stackpole's writting. He uses all his knowledge of history combined with his literary allusions to really develop and create some very great characters. The in depth backstory is what makes them so great. The "Kell Hounds" mercenary group (as well as the "Wolf's Dragoons") were pre-invasion groups sent into the inner-shpere by the Clans to see what the state of disarray the place was in. Because Phelan was a direct decendent of two "bloodnamed" warriors from the Clan Wolf (even though he was a "freebirth" in the Inner Sphere, his father was the leader of the "Kell Hounds" and his mother, was second in command), he was allowed a chance to prove himself a capable warrior (and rise to be the leader of the Clan itself, but his internal fights with his original captor, Vlad, eventually tore the Clan apart into the two rival factions of "wardens" and "crusaders"). Some more backstory, the "wardens" were of the philosophy that the mission of the Clans were to teach and instruct the Inner Sphere, showing them the folly of their 300 years of war'ing between the rival states during the Succession Wars from the collapse of the Star League. The "crusaders" believed the mission of the Clans was to re-conquer the Inner Sphere and thus re-establish the Star League as the Clans were the direct descendents of the military arm of the Star League which left the Inner Sphere when the different main houses started fighting each other for control of the League.

Anyway, the online game's current timeline has already been set. It is right now 3048. When the game releases, next year, it will be 3049. Not sure if they will keep up the real-time -> game-time conversions. At least for several years there will be PLENTY of action to handle.


Edit: All the deep history and such is the reason why I have loved this series. There is so much lore out there with so many events which could easily be turned into great games. It is all there because it created the perfect backdrop for people running their own campaigns on the tabletop games as well as with the video games. That rich history just allows so much more engrossment into the games (assuming they simply pick a place/time in the cannon, and follow the basic laws/rules of the universe).

 

[PowerYoga]

Last I recall Bushwhacker is asymmetrical. That made it hard to load out how I like.

I liked that mech. Maybe it was the asymmetricalness but I like most of the reverse-jointed mechs in general.

 

[shortylickens]

I liked that mech. Maybe it was the asymmetricalness but I like most of the reverse-jointed mechs in general.

Yeah I definitely like them better than the bumbling golems.

 

[daishi5]

Nerd nitpicking warning. The Kell hounds were not from the clans, Wolf's Dragoon's and Snord's irregulars were. The Kell hounds family was related to people who left with the SLDF, which allowed Phelan to claim a bloodname. The only reason that really matters is that go live of the game is probably going to be sometime right around the date when Phelan Kell is captured, and the Kell Hounds had no clue that the Clans existed.

 

[Ns1]

Nerd nitpicking warning. The Kell hounds were not from the clans, Wolf's Dragoon's and Snord's irregulars were. The Kell hounds family was related to people who left with the SLDF, which allowed Phelan to claim a bloodname. The only reason that really matters is that go live of the game is probably going to be sometime right around the date when Phelan Kell is captured, and the Kell Hounds had no clue that the Clans existed.

is this you?

 

[daishi5]

is this you?

Blocked at work, but probably yes. Normally I can hide my nerdiness and pretend to be a normal person, but not when it comes to giant stompy robots.

 

[Ns1]

Blocked at work, but probably yes. Normally I can hide my nerdiness and pretend to be a normal person, but not when it comes to giant stompy robots.

lol, it's the infamous red shirt WoW guy

 

[daishi5]

lol, it's the infamous red shirt WoW guy

No idea what that is, I will have to look when I get off work.

 

[shortylickens]

I feel sorry for that guy.
And also scared. If I hadnt left home and joined the Navy that would definitely have been me.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

Anyone know if this is in beta or anything?

 

[lothar]

Nobody likes Thor?
He's my 2nd favorite mech after Mad Cat.

Besides BushWacker, was there any other non-clan mech that didn't suck? I don't remember any.

 

[Elcs]

Necro'ing this thread like a boss:

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