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MechWarrior Online: New Pre-Order Program Announced
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Piranha Games has announced that a new MechWarrior Online pre-order program is now available for players wanting to be sitting pretty when the game officially launches later this year. Called Phoenix Project, packages within the set range from twenty to eighty dollars and include a variety of mechs and much more.
Each of these unique Project Phoenix packages will be delivered on October 15th and come fully equipped with:
Unique Project Phoenix BattleMech(s)* featuring:
30% C-Bill Boost
10% Loyalty Point Boost
Exclusive Custom-Designed Exterior
Two Bonus Standard Variant `Mechs
Up to Four Faction Cockpit Medallions
Custom In-Game Title and Forum Badge
Matching Mech Bay slots
Find out more on the MechWarrior Online site.
Comments
i know almost nothing about this game. Since there are preorder options now i assume it is a standard buy to play game and not just a free to play game with some preorders for bonuses?
Also, i was very VERY disappointed with how small and generic Hawken was. Just a call of duty on mechs game. How is this game different? and how big and varied are the matches and the maps?
Avatars are people too
Look up on YouTube there has always been a lot of beta videos. As a matter of fact about 6 months ago (or maybe longer) they were handing out lots of beta keys.
I thinking they'll be going with a World Of Tanks style of income model.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
im OK with the slower pace of the combat since they are huge mechs, but being a mech game it would be a lot more enjoyable (for me personally) to have huge maps like a battlefield or world of tanks for example. That was my biggest problem with Hawken, 4 versus 4 on a tiny map when you are manning a gigantic mech is not very fun (to me).
I'll dig more into MWO info to see if its what i would like to play since Hawken clearly isnt.
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Mechwarrior Online... I like it. The matches are not that radically varied, but to counterpunch the couple of small maps, they got a couple of maps that are probably larger than anything in WoT. These come up randomly, which is good and bad at the same time. Good as in you never know what you are going to get and bad in that you have to select your Mech up front (at least for the forseeable future) and some of the Mechs are better suited for larger maps and some for the smaller ones...
The Mechs are extremely flexible and you can do a lot of different things with almost any of the Mechs. The customization of the build is what you'd expect from your typical MW game... If you like the MechWarrior games, you will feel quite at home here.
As others already said, this is a Free2Play game. You can just create an account, download and play and see how it feels. A cautionary tale though, if you do this, you should know that the Trial Mechs available are quite bad and you should give it a few rounds to build up c-bills to buy your first owned Mech, then the game really starts... So don't judge the game when you are in a Trial Mech, you probably won't like it much. And if you do this, you should get a Medium or Heavy Mech as your own. The light ones are quick, but require quite a lot of skill to do good in the battles. The Medium/Heavy Mechs are the most versatile of the bunch. They have average-to-high mobility combined with quite a bit of firepower (depending on what you are using) and you can make some rookie mistakes without blowing up in 2 seconds. The Assaults are there mostly for the long range combat and are quite cumbersome to roll around with.
But as I and others said, it's free to play... So go out and try. It only costs you a few hours.
Ok to clear up some confusion.
The current pre-order pack is called so because it gives you instant (well not really.. You have to wait for october) to four classic mechs. All these mechs will be up for in-game cash from oct-jan so you are not missing anything by not getting it.
This is similar to the founders pack and is in a way a "second" founders pack as many people either missed it or did not want to invest without first having tried the game. With this pack they are meeting this demand by the community.
This have been a good conversation
It should also be noted that the mechs offered in these Phoenix packs are mechs a lot of us old Battletech/Mechwarrior fans never thought we'd see in the game because they are among the mechs known as "Unseen".
An explanation of what that means: Battletech was first published as a TableTop wargame in the early to mid 80's when mecha anime was starting to seriously filter out from Japan and becoming popular in the western world. FASA, the creators of Battletech, licensed the images of several mechs from different anime shows/movies rather than spend time/money on creating original artwork, namely Crusher Joe, Fang of the Sun Dougram and (and this becomes important later) Macross, giving the mechs new names and making up original stats for them for the game.
The mechs were as follows
From Crusher Joe: Locust
From Dougram: Shadow Hawk, Griffin, Wolverine, Thunderbolt, Battlemaster, Scorpion, Goliath.
From Macross: Stinger, Wasp, Valkyrie, Phoenix Hawk, Ostscout, Ostsol, Ostroc, Crusader, Rifleman, Archer, Warhammer, Longbow, Marauder. (and later a heavier version of Marauder namedd Marauder II)
These classic designs were, of course, the first mechs many of the fans of the game played and therefore hold a special place in many older fans' hearts, not to mention the fact that as the only mechs available early on they have a central part in much of the early lore and early novels.
Fast forward to the early to mid 90's. Battletech has gone through several expansions, new and original mechs with no connection to other IPs have been created over time, resulting in several rather profitable Technical Readout books (some of the best mix of gamerules and in-universe lore ever published for a game IMO). Among the new mechs are the Clan omnimechs which are the rides of a technologically advanced invading faction. With FASA branching out into video games and even TV (look up the Battletech cartoon. It... hasn't aged well) they were looking to create a toyline as well and took some of their designs to Playmates. Playmates ultimately turned down the offer, then turned around and created their Exo Squad toys, some of which were blatant ripoffs of Battletech designs, among them one of the most famous and iconic Clan omnimechs, the Mad Cat/Timberwolf. FASA, as one would expect, sued.
Now, Playmates had a working relationship with Harmony Gold, and Harmony Gold publishes Robotech, which is a reworking of three Anime series for the western market, among those MACROSS! So Harmony Gold and Playmates countersue FASA on the pretext that HG has exclusive rights to all the mechdesigns from Macross, which as mentioned make up a significant part of the original mech lineup for Battletech. Now, who is in the right and who is in the wrong is too long a story to retell here, but suffice to say HG has a lot deeper pockets than FASA and even though there was never a legal ruling against FASA on the matter they could afford to keep the matter in the courts for far longer than FASA could ever hope to afford without going bankrupt. So, FASA and HG settled (a deal of which the details have never been revealed) with the result that FASA removed all art of the Macross mechs from future products.
And at this point FASA completely overreacted and decided not to ever risk anyone suing them over mechs again for any reason whatsoever, so they also removed _any_ mech art which hadn't been designed specifically in-house, including art of mechs which had no connection with any other IP, but simply had been outsourced to out-of-house artists. It is also important to note that the actual original owners of the IPs in question from Japan (the creators of Dougram, Crusher Joe and Macross) have never had any problem with BT using the designs in question.
At this point the original lineup of mechs became known as the Unseen, because they did not show up in Battletech or Mechwarrior art anymore and were not used in the lore (though they were not retconned out of existence either). This, of course, made many BT fans angry, particularly the original ones and particularly at Harmony Gold whose name can still whip the BT community into a frothing rage.
Some few years ago the current producers of Battletech (FASA eventually died, like many other game producers from back in the day) published a Project Phoenix Tech Readout with redesigns of these classic mechs. Some were okay, many were not. These "Reseen" designs were on average, not well received, though perhaps somewhat unfairly harshly judged due to the attachment people felt to the original designs. People pretty much resigned themselves to the fact that they'd never really see the old mechs they used to love in any new products.
Cue Mechwarrior: Online. With the whole Unseen story as a background people have pretty much assumed the Unseen mechs will never make an appearance in MWO. After all, why would PGI want to take the risk of having to spend money on lawsuits from a still litigious Harmony Gold when there are literally (yes, actually literally) hundreds of other mechdesigns created over the decades from which they can choose? So people have (not really believing it would happen) occasionally asked if the Unseen will show up, but PGI have kept a strict "We can't talk about that" policy, again making people assume it won't happen.
And then they announce Project Phoenix, featuring four Unseen mechs (redesigned of course to fit with the MWO aesthetic) from Crusher Joe and Dougram: The Locust, the Shadow Hawk, the Thunderbolt and the Battlemaster! Cue stunned silence and then a storm of discussion on the MWO forums.
And that is the far too long story of the Unseen and Project Phoenix, children. Now go out there and blow up some big, stompy robots.
Thanks for the background. I knew some of it, but all of the players. Suffice to say, I'm one of the old guard that miss the mechs still listed among the unseen (Warhammer, Marauder).
I bought into the Founders hype, but after playing MWO, I found it... underwhelming. I haven't even used my premium time, and doubt I will.
One has this big armoured mech, and yet driving around never gave me that feeling. I can most recently compare it to World of Tanks, for feel. In WoT, it really does, to me, feel like my onscreen vehicle has mass, speed, etc. Smashing down trees, buildings, even running into other tanks, I never feel disconnected from the "feeling" of driving an armoured vehicle, regardless of its weight.
In MWO, I just don't feel connected at all. Light, heavy, assault class mechs, doesn't matter - all just feel like pixels on my screen, and I get no sense of "being there".
As for this preorder package, (to bring this post back on topic...sorry about the wanderingness of my thoughts), I'm on the side of passing it by.
For rojo, it's free to play so do give it a try if you are interested, and see what you think of it. Might be your cup of tea, after all.
Well, they are making changes which should improve that. For example they will be implementing elevation slowdowns soon. Mechs will no longer run up hills like they aren't there, and in fact different mech chassis will have different hill climbing efficiencies, so that the big, heavy, clumsy behemoths will come to a halt trying to get up a steep hill faster than a small nimble one. Also the slowdown will not be instantaneous, so a fast mech with enough speed built up will be able to coast up even inclines normally too steep for it to climb, so long as it doesn't try it for so long a distance that it slows down to a halt. That will also make mechs with jump jets more viable again as they will now be able to reach spots they might otherwise not get to.
The same with destructible terrain, such as smashing down trees and such. This is something they have not added so far while working on other features, optimizing netcode and so on, but will be included down the line. Mech collisions and knockdown will also be returning as that is something which was included in early closed beta, but was removed because the implementation left something to be desired. They've been working on creating a good model for that since then.
I can't agree that mechs don't feel heavy, though. An assault mech can be painfully slow and sluggish. Try the Stalker or Atlas for example, after having tried out a faster, nimbler mech like the Dragon or even a light like the Jenner or Spider. You will notice a huge difference in maneuverability and responsiveness.
There is also Community Warfare and more battle modes coming down the line, though that's probably about 6 months out., which will make the battle a bit more meaningful.
If you do find you enjoy the game and you feel you can afford it then the Project Phoenix package is, compared to the real money prices for stuff so far, worth it even if you can get the same mechs for in-game currency when they are released. The most expensive package is the Overlord at $80 and includes:
4 Project Phoenix mechs: LCT-1V Locust (20 tons), SHD-2H Shadow Hawk (55 tons), TDR-5S Thunderbolt (65 tons) and BLR-1G Battlemaster (85 tons). These mechs have a 30% C-bill bonus (you earn in-game credits a bit faster using them) and a unique geometry, which means they will look slightly different from the standard C-bill version of the chassis. As an example for the initial Founders program the founders mechs, which stat-wise being identical to other mechs of the same class, had a unique geometry. The Catapult had s pointed nose rather than a flat one, making it look a bit closer to the original Battletech art and so on. There will also be a unique skin and colors for these mechs.
8 standard variants of the above mechs (2 of each chassis). These are standard c-bill variants with different hardpoints and weapons loadouts than the 4 Phoenix mechs. This is also important since "mastery" of a chassis requires "leveling up" 3 variants of the same chassis. Mastery gives perks such as slightly better heat management, slightly faster firing rate, the ability to slot in 1 more modules (such as sensor systems for example) and so forth.
12 mechbays to store your 12 mechs. Another bit which would normally cost you quite a few dollars as mechbays is one of the things you have to buy for money (you start the game with, I think, 4 or 8 for free).
4 "faction medals" to hang in your mechs' cockpits, which will give a loyalty point bonus to the house in question when Community Warfare arrives.
90 days Premium Time (faster C-bill and XP gain), and for those ordering before the 25th of July they get an additional 30 days for a total of 120 days (3 months) of premium time.
Exclusive in-game badge, forum title and forum badge. Not really important, but eh. Some people are collectors and might be interested.
Early access to the new mechs. Project Phoenix buyers get everything in the package in mid-october. For everyone else the 20 ton Locust is released in October, then the 55 ton Shadow Hawk in November, the 65 ton Thunderbolt in Desember and finally the 85 ton assault mech, the Battlemaster, in January.
Like I said, it's a good value package as far as MWO's price level for previous content goes, but only of course, if you find you actually like the game. Try it first for free. See if it's up your alley or not, then make a decision if you want the Phoenix package. Just remember, there is a somewhat steep learning curve to piloting mechs to start with if you've never played a Mechwarrior game before.
Does your shiny new Battlemaster have a "buy at your own risk" sticker on it, when displayed in the showroom?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
The devs just recently explained on the nogutsnogalaxy podcast that the have worked for a long time with the legal to work out a deal for the Dougram and Crusher Joe mechs so they are now OK to use, They still can not use any of the Macross mechs but they are looking for a way to use the parts that Fasa used to own (name, specs and stuff like that) and design new mechs around that but right now they have other things to take care of
So no Warhammer or MAD
This have been a good conversation
Heh. Actually, I'm more of a Thunderbolt man than a Battlemaster fan, though the BM is a beautiful thing in its own right. And nobody puts a sticker on my beautiful classics! They might ruing the finish! What? Next you'll suggest people would dare shoot at such lovely pieces of art and risk damaging them!. What kind of crass and boorish brute would do such a thing?