MechWarrior MMO

xuiton · July 2010

Someone already mentioned in another thread about seeing this IP, however I created this thread for a possible indepth discussion about it.

WIth many planets and factions in this established IP, I have no doubt that the setting would work extremely well.

Game could be skill based progression just like EVE, there are many mechs that can easily be customised. So even if People had same Mechs they won't all be the same. Obviously not suggesting that this game rip off EVE, but an EVE system would work well for this IP, instead of level based progression.

Game would work with either FFA (like eve) or even with 2 or 3 factions at war or some sort of loose truce.

Staying true to the already established games, gameplay would be FPS or 3rd person twitch. However I am not sure it would work but gameplay might work as a standard MMORPG as well, but this would alienate already mechwarrior fans but might draw in the WoW crowd lol.

Planets and locations could be contested for PVP and there would be plenty of PVE with renegade clans or NPC factions holding planets and cities.

Any more suggestions or thoughs?

Preponerance · July 2010

I thought I saw a video of a Mech MMO a few months back, looked pretty epic was in a city setting (not perpetuum). I wish I could remember the name of it......

tronjheim · July 2010

Perpetuum is a mech game pretty much ripped from EVE, cept you get wasd controls in it.

Tho I do agree with you for fps type combat over the tab/lock type would make for a better mech experience.

Also I played mechwarroir a long time ago and don;t remember specifics, but wasn't it mainly about objective based warfare? To me complete FFA(like EVE or DF) kinda kills/disrupts the point of objective based PvP(escourt, eliminate target(s), capture and hold, ect). So far the closest thing imo to a true mechwarrior online was chrome hounds.

Xiro · July 2010

if u remember, be a dear, and let us know ;D lol

i've always dreamt about a gundam MMO, but i'd settle for this, if it was well done ;P

xuiton · July 2010

Originally posted by Preponerance
I thought I saw a video of a Mech MMO a few months back, looked pretty epic was in a city setting (not perpetuum). I wish I could remember the name of it......

There is also a new normal mechwarrior in the works.

Yeah thinking about this somemore, i believe the standard mmorpg controls (tab targetting etc) would make this game fail and just a ranged idiot fest and would remove all the fun factor from it.

Rypht · July 2010

Preponerance, what's your sig gif from? I must know!

SS2-Max · July 2010

You're talking about Force of Arms, which is still in development:

http://www.forceofarms.com/msgbbs/index.php

xuiton · July 2010

Originally posted by SS2-Max
You're talking about Force of Arms, which is still in development:

http://www.forceofarms.com/msgbbs/index.php

No i'm not, i am talking about the possibility of a MechWarrior MMO

VirusDancer · July 2010

Generally speaking, it would work best as a strategic/tactical MMO rather than your standard MMORPG. It would be more along the lines of MechCommander than MechWarrior. This mainly arises from the fact you can die in BattleTech. You can die rather easily.

Unlike a single player action RPG where when you die you just load your last saved game, you would be in a MMO persistent world.

As a simple shooter, twitch may work - but for any sort of character development, it would be problematic. You, sitting at the keyboard, do not have any of the skills that your character would have. As your character improves, it does not necessarily mean that you would while sitting at the keyboard. Short of it being some form of inverted skill formula which penalized your actions until they reached a certain point, it generally does not work. For example: You (at the keyboard) are the best game player on the planet - you never miss in twitch games. Your character has a chance to hit based on various modifiers such as distance, terrain, skill, etc. You may not miss. Your character may.

The BattleTech world is so vast - and although there may always be something to do for a particular gaming group - putting hundreds of thousands of people or more in the same universe and expecting them always to have something to do might be pushing it, probably is pushing it.

It would be a very difficult game to pull off. It would more than likely end up being a shadow of what it could be much along the lines of what we are seeing with WH40KDMO.

They would probably set it up as a particular scenario taking place in a particular time with players being on one of two sides and fighting out endlessly for no actual gain.

It would end up just being a combat game lobby game...

xuiton · July 2010

I Have to disagree, you could say that about any MMO IP. However regardless if you are not very good at skill based game, regardless, the longer you play it your skill improves no matter what, just some players are better than others. A Counter Strike player maybe be average but knowing the maps, the guns and typical routes and camping places would beat a high skilled FPS player whos only been playing a short period easily.

This applies to anything thing in real life, the more you do something, the more skilled you become. Especially if the game revolved around faction warfare, you would rely on a team more than your own twitch based skill.

VirusDancer · July 2010

Originally posted by xuiton
I Have to disagree, you could say that about any MMO IP. However regardless if you are not very good at skill based game, regardless, the longer you play it your skill improves no matter what, just some players are better than others. A Counter Strike player maybe be average but knowing the maps, the guns and typical routes and camping places would be a high skilled FPS player whos only been playing a short period easily.

This applies to anything thing in real life, the more you do something, the more skilled you become. Especially if the game revolved around faction warfare, you would rely on a team more than your own twitch based skill.

Twitch based gaming has no place in RPGs. Twitch is based off of the player's hand eye coordination, manual dexterity, etc. You are not your character though. Twitch is great for arcade type games - it is great for FPS/TPS games. When you are actually taking on the role of a character though, it simply has no place.

That is more in line with what I was getting at - the person at the keyboard could be better than their character should be, thus there would be some kind of mechanic where even though the player believes or feels they would have hit - they would have still missed - being limited by the abilities of their character.

In Classic BattleTech, start with a green character:

They will likely have a Gunnery skill of 4.

If the target is at medium range, there will be a +2 penalty to the shot.

Say you are running, that is another +2 penalty.

Say the target moved 90m or so while jumping, that is another +3 penalty.

When you fire at the target, they are in light woods with 30m of light woods between you - would be another +2 penalty.

You have been fighting for a bit and are starting to feel the effects of heat - another +1 penalty.

So you are looking at 4+2+2+3+2+1 = 14. Your character cannot possibly make that shot, even if you as a player feel that you could. An experienced character, with a Gunnery skill of 0 instead of 4 - could make that shot on a roll of 11 or 12 from a 2D6 roll.

Thus, would it become the case of you the player missing shots at one stage of the game that you are able to make later - with no change in skill on your part - but simply because your character no longer had penalties applied to him or her?

That sort of thing...and thus...one of the reasons twitch does not belong in RPGs.

Brenelael · July 2010

Originally posted by Preponerance
I thought I saw a video of a Mech MMO a few months back, looked pretty epic was in a city setting (not perpetuum). I wish I could remember the name of it......

You probably saw the Mechwarrior 5 video that was being posted everywhere about 6 months ago. It's not a MMO though just the next game in the franchise. A reboot back to the original Mechwarrior in fact the new game is just going to be called 'Mechwarrior'. Looks pretty awesome.

I too hope that someday they will bring the Mechwarrior franchise to the MMO genre but with a new single/limited multiplayer game already in the works I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. Smith & Tinker aren't really the MMO types but then again niether was Bioware until recently. It could happen.

Bren

jaxsundane · July 2010

If it was the real Mechwarrior I'd be all in for it.

dirtyjoe78 · July 2010

Originally posted by VirusDancer

Originally posted by xuiton
I Have to disagree, you could say that about any MMO IP. However regardless if you are not very good at skill based game, regardless, the longer you play it your skill improves no matter what, just some players are better than others. A Counter Strike player maybe be average but knowing the maps, the guns and typical routes and camping places would be a high skilled FPS player whos only been playing a short period easily.

This applies to anything thing in real life, the more you do something, the more skilled you become. Especially if the game revolved around faction warfare, you would rely on a team more than your own twitch based skill.

RNG based gaming has no place in RPGs. RNG is based off of the devs crappy rng code. RNG is great for arcade type games - it is great for korean grinders like AION . When you are actually taking on the role of a character though, it simply has no place.

That is more in line with what I was getting at - the person at the keyboard could be better than their character should be, thus there would be some kind of mechanic where even though the player believes or feels they would have hit - they would have still missed - being limited by the RNG algorithm.

In Classic BattleTech, start with a green character:

They will likely have a Gunnery skill of 4.

If the target is at medium range, there will be a +2 penalty to the shot.

Say you are running, that is another +2 penalty.

Say the target moved 90m or so while jumping, that is another +3 penalty.

When you fire at the target, they are in light woods with 30m of light woods between you - would be another +2 penalty.

You have been fighting for a bit and are starting to feel the effects of heat - another +1 penalty.

So you are looking at 4+2+2+3+2+1 = 14. Your character cannot possibly make that shot, even if you as a player feel that you could. An experienced character, with a Gunnery skill of 0 instead of 4 - could make that shot on a roll of 11 or 12 from a 2D6 roll if the RNG gods were smiling down on them.

Thus, would it become the case of you the player missing shots at one stage of the game that you are able to make later - with no change in skill on your part - but simply because your character no longer had penalties applied to him or her?

That sort of thing...and thus...one of the reasons RNG does not belong in RPGs.

UCWUTIDIDTHAR???

Loke666 · July 2010

Originally posted by VirusDancer
Twitch based gaming has no place in RPGs. Twitch is based off of the player's hand eye coordination, manual dexterity, etc. You are not your character though. Twitch is great for arcade type games - it is great for FPS/TPS games. When you are actually taking on the role of a character though, it simply has no place.

That is more in line with what I was getting at - the person at the keyboard could be better than their character should be, thus there would be some kind of mechanic where even though the player believes or feels they would have hit - they would have still missed - being limited by the abilities of their character.

In Classic BattleTech, start with a green character:

They will likely have a Gunnery skill of 4.

If the target is at medium range, there will be a +2 penalty to the shot.

Say you are running, that is another +2 penalty.

Say the target moved 90m or so while jumping, that is another +3 penalty.

When you fire at the target, they are in light woods with 30m of light woods between you - would be another +2 penalty.

You have been fighting for a bit and are starting to feel the effects of heat - another +1 penalty.

So you are looking at 4+2+2+3+2+1 = 14. Your character cannot possibly make that shot, even if you as a player feel that you could. An experienced character, with a Gunnery skill of 0 instead of 4 - could make that shot on a roll of 11 or 12 from a 2D6 roll.

Thus, would it become the case of you the player missing shots at one stage of the game that you are able to make later - with no change in skill on your part - but simply because your character no longer had penalties applied to him or her?

That sort of thing...and thus...one of the reasons twitch does not belong in RPGs.

Twitch based RPGs are hard to make but not impossible.

First of all you have to solve the problem with lag, that is a lot harder than character progression. Usually they instance the game because of this but the net is getting better and sooner or later will it be good enough to play any game without lag.

As for character vs player skill you can actually make a compromise. A character who has higher ranks can shoot faster, jams less, his sight is more stable and so on. I see no reason why that wont work. A pure skill based game with no levels, xp or similar wouldn't be a RPG game anyways but if you mix the genres you could make things interesting.

You can't copy a twitch based FPS game straight of and make it into a good RPG game but if you are creative you can mix the 2 into something new and fun.

xuiton · July 2010

Well i never suggested an RPG, i said MMO.

And I have no idea why dice rolling would come into play in the Battletech or an action based game. Is there a tabletop i didnt think there was. I watched the cartoon and played mechwarrior games Going off the universe established by these and applied them to an MMO.

And there are mechanics in mechwarrior, if you are firing too much, you build up heat and will explode. You have limited about of ammo and missiles. Lasers need to recharge and firing them all at once builds up massive heat, also using other systems such as jumpjets also causes heat. Getting hit with certain weapons builds up heat. Mechs move slow anyway so its not that much twitch to it.

Games like UT 2004 etc are twitch. Would i consider call of duty MW 2 twitch, possibly. but you cant dodge on it. You die fast if aimed at.

You could easily apply RTS and MMO elements to mechwarrior, your hits can still miss based on range etc.

Many people enjoy FPS games and think robots are 'cool'. Sticking to the standard RPG forulma for every game does not make it work or even fun.

Do you think EVE would be more fun if you could actually fly the ship and shoot yourself? It obviously would not be EVE then but having played EVE, i would find more fun in smaller classes of ships piloting it myself, obviously would be stupid in a battleship but then again EVE isn't an RPG either.

VirusDancer · July 2010

Originally posted by xuiton

And I have no idea why dice rolling would come into play in the Battletech or an action based game. Is there a tabletop i didnt think there was. I watched the cartoon and played mechwarrior games Going off the universe established by these and applied them to an MMO.

You're kidding right? Please tell me you're kidding.

17 years of tabletop gaming before Wiz got a hold of it and started the clix crap in '01.

BattleTech originally came out in 1984.

Crescent Hawk's Inception came out in '88. The first MechWarrior game came out in '89. That crappy cartoon only ran for what 12 or so episodes in '94.

All the sourcebooks, the expansions, the novels - my God, the wealth of information available there...

VirusDancer · July 2010

Originally posted by dirtyjoe78

Originally posted by VirusDancer

Originally posted by xuiton

I Have to disagree, you could say that about any MMO IP. However regardless if you are not very good at skill based game, regardless, the longer you play it your skill improves no matter what, just some players are better than others. A Counter Strike player maybe be average but knowing the maps, the guns and typical routes and camping places would be a high skilled FPS player whos only been playing a short period easily.

This applies to anything thing in real life, the more you do something, the more skilled you become. Especially if the game revolved around faction warfare, you would rely on a team more than your own twitch based skill.

Twitch based gaming has no place in RPGs. Twitch is based off of the player's hand eye coordination, manual dexterity, etc. You are not your character though. Twitch is great for arcade type games - it is great for FPS/TPS games. When you are actually taking on the role of a character though, it simply has no place.

That is more in line with what I was getting at - the person at the keyboard could be better than their character should be, thus there would be some kind of mechanic where even though the player believes or feels they would have hit - they would have still missed - being limited by the abilities of their character.

In Classic BattleTech, start with a green character:

They will likely have a Gunnery skill of 4.

If the target is at medium range, there will be a +2 penalty to the shot.

Say you are running, that is another +2 penalty.

Say the target moved 90m or so while jumping, that is another +3 penalty.

When you fire at the target, they are in light woods with 30m of light woods between you - would be another +2 penalty.

You have been fighting for a bit and are starting to feel the effects of heat - another +1 penalty.

So you are looking at 4+2+2+3+2+1 = 14. Your character cannot possibly make that shot, even if you as a player feel that you could. An experienced character, with a Gunnery skill of 0 instead of 4 - could make that shot on a roll of 11 or 12 from a 2D6 roll.

Thus, would it become the case of you the player missing shots at one stage of the game that you are able to make later - with no change in skill on your part - but simply because your character no longer had penalties applied to him or her?

That sort of thing...and thus...one of the reasons twitch does not belong in RPGs.

UCWUTIDIDTHAR???

Um, no.. did I miss something?

xuiton · July 2010

You are missing my point though, i am not talking about converting the tabletop into an MMORPG or having an MMORPG in the battletech/mechwarrior universe. i am talking about the mechwarrior as an MMO. An MMO is not an MMORPG.

Axehilt · July 2010

Originally posted by xuiton
You are missing my point though, i am not talking about converting the tabletop into an MMORPG or having an MMORPG in the battletech/mechwarrior universe. i am talking about the mechwarrior as an MMO. An MMO is not an MMORPG.

It's a completely viable idea, yes.

And even if it was lighter on RPG elements than some games, it would still have a ton of progression elements (learn new skills, become certified in additional equipment, and purchase new 'mechs.)

Even if it wasn't an RPG where 100% of your ability to land hits and deal damage comes from your stats (like other games), it would still have a pretty heavy RPG influence. Perhaps not enough to be labelled MMORPG (after all, Planetside wasn't) but like Planetside it would nevertheless have a substantial progression element.

SS2-Max · July 2010

Originally posted by Preponerance
I thought I saw a video of a Mech MMO a few months back, looked pretty epic was in a city setting (not perpetuum). I wish I could remember the name of it......

Originally posted by xuiton

Originally posted by SS2-Max

You're talking about Force of Arms, which is still in development:

http://www.forceofarms.com/msgbbs/index.php

No i'm not, i am talking about the possibility of a MechWarrior MMO

*Ehem* I was refering to Preponerance's post, fyi. :<

Regarding a Mechwarrior MMO (And I'll probably repeat some stuff that other people mentioned), I don't think the tripple faction feature was used in any MMO lately (Like DAoC and PS). Battletech is a really huge universe as mentioned before. If a Mechwarrior game was to be created, it could very well fit that style. However, as it was mentioned before, it'll probably be stricted to two sides (Like Warhammer Online) on a single planet or a small batch of known/mostly used planets in BT. You can't really tell until its actually made, "IF".

So I'd say...the probability that it will happen is kind of small. Piranha Games got the license for MW now and I don't think an MMO is in their mind at this time...but, things could happen.

Unknown · July 2010

I could get into such a game, although I'd have to brush up on the backstory. The last time I played, the Clans had been defeated in some kind of honor-battle at Twycross and forced to halt their advance for like fifteen years. I tried reading some Mechwarrior/Battletech stuff and it was set several centuries later involving politics and factions that were totally alien to me.

VirusDancer · July 2010

Originally posted by Sawtooth
I could get into such a game, although I'd have to brush up on the backstory. The last time I played, the Clans had been defeated in some kind of honor-battle at Twycross and forced to halt their advance for like fifteen years. I tried reading some Mechwarrior/Battletech stuff and it was set several centuries later involving politics and factions that were totally alien to me.

Yeah, the WizKids took a whiz all over the story... quite a bit actually took place after that 15 years. Think I stopped playing around 3063-65 or so.

Demonsblade · July 2010

EA was making a battletech game, It was called Multiplayer BattleTech 3025. Sadly it was cancelled in 2001.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcq6tGgxzEQ&feature=related

"Players of 3025 connected to an MMOG-style server, selected an affiliation in the form of a Great House, selected a planet, then descended to the surface to engage in a virtual four-on-four battle with opposing players. The results of such battles were planets being won and lost for the five major houses, shifting the borders of various factions in the Inner Sphere. 3025 used many more of the original BattleTech rules than the MechWarrior series."

Nevulus · July 2010

perpetuum online

eburn · July 2010

FASA's games have been popping up a lot lately.

The ol' company is gone but the same crew bought back their game liscense from Microsoft.

They've worked on a MMO of sorts, everyone speculates it was a testing of the waters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_%26_Tinker

One can dream.

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