Mechwarrior Online

[Ironwood]

Interesting.

Given all that information, it seems logical to suggest that they'll probably do the same for MWO with the possibility that people who utterly, utterly suck might eventually be stuck in a bright Red Jenner.

The thing is though, Mech's aren't quite the same analogy here since the MWO Guys are adamant that they want every mech to be a participant and that there's no such thing as a 'best' mech.  I suspect even if that's true there's going to be a world of difference between 'cheap' and 'expensive' mechs.

Fuck it, I'll be in my modified Dragon if anyone wants me anyway.

[Merusk]

Yeah, I suspect that there's not going to be a way to lose money here and its going to be relatively unimportant.  Without the tier system to the mechs, there's no way to introduce a real money sink without disenfranchising free players who aren't great at the game.

Then again, money is pretty pointless in WOT, too, once you have the tanks you really want to drive.  Can't discuss more without going in to stuff on MWO.

[Kageru]

It's a good model as well because it means people playing their "credit earner" tanks are available to be cannon fodder for purchased / higher tier tanks which makes games fill quicker (especially in the mid-tiers). I would think any f2p game would be looking at WoT carefully, because their model works.

[Falconeer]

One big difference between World of Tanks and Mechwarrior is that in MWO outside of paintjobs there won't be anything you can't buy with the in-game currency. Real money are only a way to speed up the process of purchasing stuff, but they stated multiple times there won't be anything outside maybe vanity items that won't be available to the people who are playing for free.

Now how is that going to earn them money if they don't find a moneysink is beyond me. I mean, for example, with the Premium account you earn 50% more money every match, and if you use a founder mech you earn another 25% with that specific mech. It's not too hard to imagine that the founders will all be pretty disgustingly rich in a couple of months unless the repair costs get really, really steep. Which would be another problem in itself.

I don't think they will introduce expensive mechs per se. All 'mechs are viable and have a role and battles are not tiered as in World of Tanks, but they certainly have to put in different repair costs, as some sort of risk vs. reward mechanism for the "bigger" 'mechs. Also, I would bet on Community Warfare (The faction controllable Planets) being available only to Premium users (like they did in Global Agenda) even though they said nothing about it yet.

[Ironwood]

Clans are already invading the Periphery.

Just start putting Clan Equipment on an AH.  Instant Money Sink and total Fucking Disaster for your game short term.  Even though the Clans are inevitably coming.

[Gets]

Converting tank gold into credits in WoT is a bad idea, since premium tanks and premium account gets you way more of dat flippin' tank silver. However playing your mechs to get credits for upgrades in MWO is a bad idea when you can just buy an Atlas, strip the XL 300 engine and sell it for credits to buy ~more lazers~ for your Lunchback and Lawesome. Since the earning power of Founder's stuff just got boosted into crazy six digit ranges I'm worried about the Week 1 power creep that will happen after launch, since most of the people picked the Founder's Atlas.

[5150]

I can see me wanting alot of different Mechs (I think its a given that they wont be able to add them fast enough) and while you appear to also be able to buy Mechs with c-bills (I like this but I question the business sence of it) I'm still expecting additional mech slots to be real money only purchases.

Does anyone know what the in game year actually is anyway? Clan invasion was somewhere around 3050 and the losttech started coming back around 3035 onwards

[Merusk]

Gets, by no means did I mean to imply that gold-> credits was a good idea.   I just wanted to state there's definitely a 'last resort' option if you're truly and totally broke with no hope of repairing your tanks.

You do touch on something I was concerned about in terms of modules for MWO that WOT doesn't have because tank parts aren't 100% swappable.   In WOT you can't take a 100mm gun off a SU-100 and slap it on your KV-2.  The game system being based on real equipment recognizes that the mounts are all different and the gun itself is modified to fit in the different turrets.

MW, being game based, doesn't take this approach.  A medium-laser is a ML and fits on any mech. Same for machine guns, large lasers, ppcs, etc.  More reality-based then you wouldn't be mounting the same PPC that's on a Catapult to an Atlas.  They're two totally different bracket and mounting styles. This would be a gold-sink opportunity that the greater game system rules don't allow.

Unless mechs are priced greater than the sum of their parts, you're going to save more money buying the mech with the parts you want and stripping them out than you will buying individual components.

[Lantyssa]

I can see me wanting alot of different Mechs (I think its a given that they wont be able to add them fast enough) and while you appear to also be able to buy Mechs with c-bills (I like this but I question the business sence of it) I'm still expecting additional mech slots to be real money only purchases.

Does anyone know what the in game year actually is anyway? Clan invasion was somewhere around 3050 and the losttech started coming back around 3035 onwards

I think it's a great idea.  Patient people will use C-Bills for purchasing, but plenty of people will flat out buy 'mechs.  Plus the special 'mechs which give a reward boost will only be purchasable with money.

It is August 8, 3049 in game.  It tracks day-by-day.  The Periphery is getting hit right now, but none of the Inner Sphere gives enough of a damn to even notice.  The Oh Shit factor should start increasing soon though.

[Falconeer]

I love the day-by-day thing. I just hope it won't bite them in the ass. From a certain perspective, canon and canon enforcers are more draconic than any publisher could ever be when it comes to strict deadlines.

[Ironwood]

Poor Phelan.

[Tmon]

If it does happen, though, you can always sell one of your upper level tanks and buy a lower-tier tank to earn some credits.    My tier 8s only cost 9k to repair if blown-up.  However, if you suck SO BAD that you've run out of money.. you might want to reconsider playing at that upper tier.

Failing any of that you can convert Gold (real money currency) into credits at a rate of 1:400.

You can always get a stock tier 1 for 0 credits but it would be a long slog to earn enough to repair a completely destroyed tier 10.  It seems like in a standard account tier 6 is the cutoff for making money consistently, in tier 7+ the ammo costs start to eat you up especially if you miss/bounce a lot.  For a premium account tier 8/9 seems to be the place where you start to break even and tier 10 is almost always a loss.  I've had strings of losses in standard (I tend to only play premium when I know I'm not traveling for a month) with my tier 9/10s that have cost over 100k credits, but thanks to owning a bunch of premium tanks I've never come close to being broke.   

Also, you do have to completely repair a tank before you can go into battle with it.

[Ghambit]

God I love Cryengine3.  If they had more support I'd play with it more.

[Falconeer]

ISN News Flash


by Inner Sphere News Aug 11, 2012 9:00 AM PDT
Sat. Aug 11, 3049: After the successful test of its Arrow artillery system last year, Confederation unveils the CPLT-C3 Catapult.

 

[Merusk]

Not being a mech geek, can anyone explain the awesomeness to me?  How is that missile system different from the standard 10,/20 volley system on the catapults?  I read a mech wiki and still don't get it.

[Goreschach]

Not being a mech geek, can anyone explain the awesomeness to me?  How is that missile system different from the standard 10,/20 volley system on the catapults?  I read a mech wiki and still don't get it.

It's basically a cruise missile. According to tabletop it should be immune to ams, shoot across the entire map and never miss.

[Lightstalker]

Mech Based Artillery.  http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Arrow_IV_Artillery  It'll shoot across 9 map boards (the standard map was 17 hexes long and the longest range conventional weapon was 24/27 hexes depending on what year you are playing).  It deals damage to the target Hex and all surrounding Hexes.  Since you are targeting a hex 60m a side it doesn't miss and deals its damage to all units in the target and splash hexes.  The damage is a modest 20/10 (In Target / Neighboring Hex), but the lack of return fire and single hit location was pretty significant for the time.  I seem to remember the artillery rules having time of flight, which would make the guided missile superior to the shell based cannon (Long Tom and Sniper) based artillery, which could also be Mech based so long as you were already jumping the shark with Mech based Artillery.

You could probably do more with a rock dropped from orbit, but you know, giant robots.

[Lantyssa]

The main thing was that it could serve as 'mech-mounted artillery, or as a long-range AC-20.

[Amaron]

Why are they running that feed before release?  I thought the game updates were supposed to be tied to it in some way?

[Lightstalker]

Game timeline advances through the Battletech storyline day by day 1:1 to real time.  So by starting in 3049 we know the Clans have already started hitting the periphery and will be doing so openly in about a year.  Some days are just slow news days...

As to why they'd start it before release...  Who knows?  They could have started it anywhere between 2750-3060 and they chose 3049 and they chose to start the feed a while ago (actually the feed has been running for 9 months).  Some of what it does do is start to put the factions in the game into context for those who aren't Battletech Trivia Masters.  If there was more to the updates I'd say it could build interest in the game, but the updates have been underwhelming thus far.  I keep expecting there to be something more than the, often single line, brief blurb.

[Simond]

ISN News Flash


by Inner Sphere News Aug 11, 2012 9:00 AM PDT
Sat. Aug 11, 3049: After the successful test of its Arrow artillery system last year, Confederation unveils the CPLT-C3 Catapult.

 

Well, that makes fighting the Clanners a little easier then. 3xArrowpults + 1xTAGRaven.

[Fordel]

The Arrow system was almost always banned in every ladder/league I played in Mech2, it was just such a ridiculous system in the actual video game. Basically any map that wasn't a city map, meant 1-4 of your lance was dead before you ever got into weapons range.

[Ghambit]

The Arrow system was almost always banned in every ladder/league I played in Mech2, it was just such a ridiculous system in the actual video game. Basically any map that wasn't a city map, meant 1-4 of your lance was dead before you ever got into weapons range.

Arty in tabletop play is also largely forbidden unless you're running with Battlespace, Aerotech, and/or Citytech.  You just simply can't properly balance the game without air supp. or ground troops.   It makes sense since in "reality" the Mechwarrior aspect is only a small slice of the total cost of war in the Inner Sphere... so you're essentially only simulating that piece of it.  Injecting arty willy-nilly is therefore kinda stupid w/o injecting a lot of other stuff as well.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah.  I don't think I ever had it in my game.  If I was going to use it, it'd be for dramatic effect.

[5150]

I was hoping they'd add it but I'd put it on a Stalker

[Shannow]

Clan tech will make this game bad enough.

I can dream that one day they'll have a 3025 tech-only server.

[Ironwood]

You know, judging by the play at the moment, it's no wonder the Clans ripped through the Inner Sphere like ripe fruit through a short grannie.

[HaemishM]

Inner Sphere was made up of PUGs? 

[Shannow]

Redacted

[Merusk]

I've never seen so many people unwilling to learn from the mistakes they made in previous encounters. 

"Alphastrike, HOOOOOOOOOOOOO" 

"I can totally take on those 2 jenners by myself!"

"Atlas? Dude he's mine!"

"Why shouldn't I stop out in the open again?"

[Ironwood]

Once the NDA goes down, remind me to tell you all about the Last March of the Awesomes.

Some strange tactics going on.  I suspect a LOT of changes in future.

[Trippy]

Those of you covered by the NDA read this: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=13793.0

[Kageru]

I've never seen so many people unwilling to learn from the mistakes they made in previous encounters. 

If the design assumed anything than a mosh-pit at the point of contact it was wildly optimistic.

[Ghambit]

Has anyone heard anything about possible "Death from above," "melee (and the weapons)," or "grappling" in the game??  I see no indications... kinda sad if they can't put in it.

[Trippy]

Has anyone heard anything about possible "Death from above,"

Whoa, MW1 flashbacks.