Author Topic: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description  (Read 29033 times)

martian

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Kobold

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #1 on: 08 March 2012, 14:04:58 »
Short version (for those who don't want to click the link):

MechWarrior tactics is a prettier version of MegaMek, "free to play" but with microtransactions to buy parts to customize your mechs

MechWarrior Online still doesn't have enough information about it to figure out if it is at all different from just firing up an old copy of MW4.  (Kobold's suspicion:  it will also involve microtransactions to get parts to customize, or to repair faster)

Prydefalcn

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #2 on: 08 March 2012, 14:47:53 »
I just had an epiphany regarding the new information we've heard from GDC.

This isn't a play on the Battletech board game,

It's a play on Mechwarrior: Age of Destruction.

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Bad_Syntax

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #3 on: 08 March 2012, 15:23:46 »
Mechwarrior Tactics looks awesome, I may enjoy it more if its done right and not to nickel and dime me out of a porsche like most F2P games.

Can't wait for both, not only the games, but hopefully bring a lot of people into the game itself (more products, woot!)
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Kobold

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #4 on: 08 March 2012, 16:31:23 »
Mechwarrior Tactics looks awesome, I may enjoy it more if its done right and not to nickel and dime me out of a porsche like most F2P games.

That is pretty much the definition of "done right" from the point of view of the developer.

nckestrel

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #5 on: 08 March 2012, 17:03:51 »
That is pretty much the definition of "done right" from the point of view of the developer.

The difference in done right and done wrong is the experience of the players, both those that are paying and those that are not.
If both are happy, then it is done right.
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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #6 on: 08 March 2012, 17:15:15 »
...so a MegaMek where you issue the orders, and then it plays the turn cinematically?

This is a dream I've had for many years, come true.

I wonder of you'll be able to replay a complete game this way?
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Maingunnery

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #7 on: 08 March 2012, 17:18:47 »

I really hope it becomes available for the PC or android.
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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #8 on: 08 March 2012, 17:33:46 »
...so a MegaMek where you issue the orders, and then it plays the turn cinematically?

This is a dream I've had for many years, come true.

I wonder of you'll be able to replay a complete game this way?

According to Joystiq: "At the end of a match, players are able to watch the whole match as one movie, and share it on their favorite social media platforms, like Friendster, YouTube and Facebook."  O0

Paul

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #9 on: 08 March 2012, 17:35:29 »
I wonder what a real-time conga-line looks like ;)

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #10 on: 08 March 2012, 17:36:45 »
According to Joystiq: "At the end of a match, players are able to watch the whole match as one movie, and share it on their favorite social media platforms, like Friendster, YouTube and Facebook."  O0

SQUEEE!!! :D

I wonder what a real-time conga-line looks like ;)

Challenge accepted. 8)
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Mastergunz

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #11 on: 08 March 2012, 17:50:00 »
Holy crap-stick! I have wanted something like this for ages. Way back when I first started playing the table top game I used to joke how cool it would be to plug all the info into a program and get to watch a game play out in real time. Winning!

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Colodie

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #12 on: 08 March 2012, 17:53:30 »
I really hope it becomes available for the PC or android.

Mechwarrior Tactical Command is for iPhone

This is something different (or maybe a different version) based on "... the latter is a turn-based strategy game playable in your browser using the Unity plug-in." from that article.

Youngblood

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #13 on: 08 March 2012, 19:40:03 »
Web browsers?  I know I'm not terribly familiar with how well games on those have come along these days, but the amount of rendering needed for those screenshots looks like something you might see on A Certain Blizzard-developed Science Fiction Computer Game....

cold1

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #14 on: 08 March 2012, 20:13:33 »
Yup I'm sold on this now.  As for paying for content... I'll save my coin for when I can get stuff with grey kitty cats on it.


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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #15 on: 08 March 2012, 20:15:16 »
Visually it is really pretty, and the cinema feature is incredibly inspired...

But I am reserving judgment.

I'll happily spend dough to play, buy mechs, repairs, etc etc etc, but I am waiting on info as to whether the game mechanics faithfully follow the game rules, or not.

If not, I probably won't give it much more than a passing fancy.
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thefiddler

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #16 on: 09 March 2012, 05:09:20 »
Hopefully MW Tactics will be mod-able so someone can make a Megamek crossover using same graphics/rendering while being true to the tabletop rules.

Atlas3060

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #17 on: 09 March 2012, 09:35:09 »
According to Joystiq: "At the end of a match, players are able to watch the whole match as one movie, and share it on their favorite social media platforms, like Friendster, YouTube and Facebook."  O0
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Carbon Elasmobranch

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #18 on: 09 March 2012, 13:29:05 »
Any chance of superheavies in the future?  ^VVVVVVV^

Bad_Syntax

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #19 on: 09 March 2012, 14:38:03 »
I really hope that they stick as close as possible to the BT rules.

However, I seriously doubt they won't abstract a lot of things, change the rules to make them easier to code, and dumb down the system for people who don't play BT.  So I seriously doubt this will be a good replacement for megamek or the board game.  I do hope to be wrong, but I think this will be more "Final Fantasy" with mechs than megamek with better graphics.

Writing a 3D graphics interface for megamek isn't exactly impossible, quite a few of us have done a 3D hex/mech based interfaces in the past.  Megamek would need an API though, basically a way to send it all the turn code, and query everything possible in order to have a true interface.  I would love to see that, and know its possible, but I neither know java well enough or the megamek code base to actually code that.  Actually, since it does have a server/client communication system much of the updates are all essentially completely, there really just needs to be an API layer to the interface to allow external applications to control a megamek game.
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Istal_Devalis

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #20 on: 09 March 2012, 14:42:14 »
Why would they need to dumb things down? Most of the players wont care to know detail besides 'The Faster you go, the harder you are to hit' and 'Green means a higher chance to hit then Yellow', so it's not like they need to change numbers around.

I'm more interested in if they're going 'I move, You move, on a unit per unit basis' as we've traditionally done, or whether we're going with full double blind, preplotted movement like in the optional rules.

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #21 on: 09 March 2012, 14:48:23 »
There is actually a semi-working 3d interface for megamek included in current MM, but none of the current devs really know Java3D, so it's been unupdated for quite a while. There's also the problem of creating and texturing the models.

Paul

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #22 on: 09 March 2012, 14:49:05 »
My priority is: does it have big stompy robots? Does it adhere to the story well enough? Does it reward good tactics?
Beyond that, I can forgive many deviations.

And heck, how many *don't* play with some house rules in their own games?

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kurtl000

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #23 on: 09 March 2012, 15:05:40 »
As I've said before the mechs in this game look terrible and some don't even remotely look like they do in the tech readouts which is a huge let down for me. If you don't know what I'm talking about look at their version of the hunchback. Now is this gonna be playable on the PC or what?

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #24 on: 09 March 2012, 15:37:03 »
Now is this gonna be playable on the PC or what?

It's browser-based, using a plug-in.
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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #25 on: 09 March 2012, 15:52:23 »
Why would they need to dumb things down? Most of the players wont care to know detail besides 'The Faster you go, the harder you are to hit' and 'Green means a higher chance to hit then Yellow', so it's not like they need to change numbers around.

I'm more interested in if they're going 'I move, You move, on a unit per unit basis' as we've traditionally done, or whether we're going with full double blind, preplotted movement like in the optional rules.

With asychronous play, I gotta think they're going to go with moving all of your units in one turn, otherwise, games could drag on forever.

I would hope that the developers just have the primary goal of delivering a fulfilling and and fun video game experience, and I know for me, a straight BTech translation is not that. I want an additional way to enjoy the universe of BattleTech, not a replacement for the game I already have. Also, the latest Front Mission did nothing for my turn-based video game robot addiction, so I'm jonesing bad :D

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #26 on: 09 March 2012, 15:59:53 »
Any chance of superheavies in the future?  ^VVVVVVV^
Doubtful for the timeline is 3025 super heavies don't come out until at least 60 years down the road I think?

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #27 on: 10 March 2012, 03:22:01 »
With asychronous play, I gotta think they're going to go with moving all of your units in one turn, otherwise, games could drag on forever.

I would hope that the developers just have the primary goal of delivering a fulfilling and and fun video game experience, and I know for me, a straight BTech translation is not that. I want an additional way to enjoy the universe of BattleTech, not a replacement for the game I already have. Also, the latest Front Mission did nothing for my turn-based video game robot addiction, so I'm jonesing bad :D

Yeah, I'm not saying that MW Tactics should be a direct copy of the table top game. I just think it would be nice if they made it mod friendly so that dedicated people from the BT community with the right skills could make that for those of us in the fanbase who would want it (which I would imagine is pretty much everyone). Making a streamlined game will be better for drawing new people in though.

Bad_Syntax

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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #28 on: 10 March 2012, 03:47:22 »
Why would they need to dumb things down? Most of the players wont care to know detail besides 'The Faster you go, the harder you are to hit' and 'Green means a higher chance to hit then Yellow', so it's not like they need to change numbers around.

They'll dumb it down to widen the potential audience, its the hip thing to do these days in computer games.  I'm betting this will be far more like heroes of might and magic and far less like megamek with animated turns. 

But I'll still play it :)
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Re: MechWarrior Tactics, first extensional description
« Reply #29 on: 10 March 2012, 13:20:33 »
Yeah, I'm not saying that MW Tactics should be a direct copy of the table top game. I just think it would be nice if they made it mod friendly so that dedicated people from the BT community with the right skills could make that for those of us in the fanbase who would want it (which I would imagine is pretty much everyone). Making a streamlined game will be better for drawing new people in though.
As long as all the rules are handled in the background, I don't see why a direct copy of the game wouldn't appeal to the casual gamer. The most complex part is really knowing that a Large Laser does 8 damage, and X unit has 16 points of armor / 8 points structure in a location.
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