I love all the golds (Mechwarrior Online's term for people who have spent thousands on this game) in here desperately trying to rope people into their game.
Avoid MWO at all costs, unless you love Battletech, and I mean absolutely fanatically love it, it is NOT worth it at all, the irony is that the game is the way it is BECAUSE of guys like these coddling PGI with "OH NOO NEW PLAYERS DON'T NEED A TUTORIAL OR ANYTHING TO HELP THEM! ITS GOING TO MAKE THE GAME LIKE CoD IF YOU PUT IN A TUTORIAL! THE GAME IS FINE AS IT IS!" and look where it's gotten you now, desperate to sucker new players into a dying game.
I love all the golds (Mechwarrior Online's term for people who have spent thousands on this game) in here desperately trying to rope people into their game.
Avoid MWO at all costs, unless you love Battletech, and I mean absolutely fanatically love it, it is NOT worth it at all, the irony is that the game is the way it is BECAUSE of guys like these coddling PGI with "OH NOO NEW PLAYERS DON'T NEED A TUTORIAL OR ANYTHING TO HELP THEM! ITS GOING TO MAKE THE GAME LIKE CoD IF YOU PUT IN A TUTORIAL! THE GAME IS FINE AS IT IS!" and look where it's gotten you now, desperate to sucker new players into a dying game.
You made your beds, now sleep in them.
There are certainly founders who are like that, but not most of us. I don't think those people matter anyway, its PGI's fault the game didn't have a tutorial not the players (as others have said, much like eve didn't have a decent new player experience for so long)- you can find elitist asshats like you describe in any online game spouting nonsense.
Anyway, it has a tutorial now. Don't expect it to make you good instantly, but hopefully it makes it easier to get started. I see a lot of people crying about how easy games are anyway, I thought people wanted a challenge for a more rewarding playing experience.
I love all the golds (Mechwarrior Online's term for people who have spent thousands on this game) in here desperately trying to rope people into their game.
Avoid MWO at all costs, unless you love Battletech, and I mean absolutely fanatically love it, it is NOT worth it at all, the irony is that the game is the way it is BECAUSE of guys like these coddling PGI with "OH NOO NEW PLAYERS DON'T NEED A TUTORIAL OR ANYTHING TO HELP THEM! ITS GOING TO MAKE THE GAME LIKE CoD IF YOU PUT IN A TUTORIAL! THE GAME IS FINE AS IT IS!" and look where it's gotten you now, desperate to sucker new players into a dying game.
You made your beds, now sleep in them.
*points up* This person is not exactly impartial either. The game is by no stretch of the imagination dying and the core gameplay is good. That being said the UI needs A LOT of work and as i said as a new player things will be very rough if you go at it alone.
Now with that said there are several "guilds" that are open to new players no matter the level of experince or how much time you have to spend. So until a proper tutorial is in the game ask around a bit and run with a established group as that will improve your expreince massivley
When was the research for this review done? There's been an in-game (non-YouTube video) play-through movement tutorial for a few weeks now, with big indicators on the launcher on how to play it, with more tutorials on the way (reportedly).
And that's what happens when you review the wrong kind of product. Mechwarrior Online is not an MMO; it's a match-made shooter with some customization and leveling up. In that regard, it's closer to Team Fortress 2 than World of Warcraft.
This is an amazing game, but it's nothing like Guild Wars 2 so of course MMORPG.com gave it a 5.4. What is MMORPG.com reviewing next, the Chevy Volt? That new Mexican restaurant down the street? Iron Man 3? Why not? I'm sure you'd give them all low ratings because none of them have daily quests, talent trees, or auction houses.
Lol yeah. I couldn't agree more that this game has nothing to do with MMO's. I have zero desire to play this game, but that shouldn't be a surprise as this is match made shooter with no real persistent world or really any MMO qualities.
an important point that many of the "a working and functional UI is not so important" guys here do not tell is:
a big part of MWO is modifing your big robot .... and you have to use this ugly, broken and uninformative UI so it rightfully deserves every bad rating regarding the UI an other important point i could not find here is one of the main problems of MWO
it is a shooting game where the shooting itself is broken -- fast moving mech have a "lag shield" and some mechs have broken hitboxes
Ugly, uninformative yes, but how is the mech lab broken? I've never had an issue with functionality, it is just poorly designed. You should be able to easily see how many free slots you have available while modifying a mech for example. Stats like arm movement and torso twist, which can change between variants of the same mech, aren't shown anyplace in the game at all, you have to go to forums or 3rd party sites for stuff like that.
lag shielding does happen. The weekend before last was terrible, seemed like every match was half spiders and jenners, if you can't beat them join them I guess. But that's the exception not the rule. They do deserve points off for this since when it does happen its extremely annoying. And when the lag shielding stops and you get to kill 4 lights in a single match with an Atlas its funny payback at least.
now you have to pay everytime for modifications if you change from single heatsink to double heatsink
and again if you change it back ... and again if you will build it in again
it is annouinced for UI 2.0 that this will be fixed ..... so that means it is now broken
oh and while we are at it double heat sinks are not 2x as effective as single heatsinks
it is only 1.4x effective ..... the developersers said it would be to powerfull if more heat could be removed faster and are selling heat removing devices for real and ingame cash at the same time
now you have to pay everytime for modifications if you change from single heatsink to double heatsink
and again if you change it back ... and again if you will build it in again
it is annouinced for UI 2.0 that this will be fixed ..... so that means it is now broken
oh and while we are at it double heat sinks are not 2x as effective as single heatsinks
it is only 1.4x effective ..... the developersers said it would be to powerfull if more heat could be removed faster and are selling heat removing devices for real and ingame cash at the same time
That would be broken if it wasn't intentional, but it is that way on purpose. They even explained the reasoning for having to pay every time you swap heat sinks or structure as you paying techs for service on your mech- kind of a RP reason for a major game feature but that's what they said. And they didn't say this would be removed, they said they are looking at it and think the pricing might not be in line with current cbill gain. You not liking a feature or disagreeing with the way the game is balanced doesn't make it broken. And btw, I happen to agree with you about the heat sinks and structure pricing.
edit: your wrong about the double heatsink issue and so was I. The engine internal sinks are 2.0, externals are 1.4. I still feel that the cooler mechs can run the more it will make anything other than high alpha striking assaults uncompetitive. link to info (first post under heat sink single vs double):
Hawken is a much better mech-based shooter. The mechs actually feel like mechs & not some sort of hovering vehicles, the developers behind it are by and large much more focused, open, and display a greater level of competence than Piranha ever has for sure. The graphics aren't cutting edge, but still look quite good. The sound is superior, the UI is much better, and the cash shop is much more reasonable & has managed not to stray too far into pay-to-win territory.
It's just overall a better game. A shame it doesn't seem to get any attention on this site though; why is that?
That all equals 24.. then you divide the number of entries into that number... I get a 6. Where the hell is the other rating of 4 at?
MWO isn't bad to play. All the third person doom and gloom,,, whatever... what you gain in a few more degrees of field of view, you lose with loss of the mini map and a goofy camera floating around you.
Just dont use the cash shop, and the game is entirely playable without spending a dime, and you get the bigger mechs with all the fixins.
That all equals 24.. then you divide the number of entries into that number... I get a 6. Where the hell is the other rating of 4 at?
MWO isn't bad to play. All the third person doom and gloom,,, whatever... what you gain in a few more degrees of field of view, you lose with loss of the mini map and a goofy camera floating around you.
Just dont use the cash shop, and the game is entirely playable without spending a dime, and you get the bigger mechs with all the fixins.
Page 2? Flip the page and you get
4
4
6
Total 38, divided by 7 = 5.4
But I also agree with you, MWO is fun to play and I've been putting a bit too much time into it lately. The game is free to play, meaning you do not have to spend a cent to get a very functional playing session. Even Atlas', double heatsinks, artemis and all the rest of the fixins can be purchased with C-bills attainable with each match.
Hell, even when I lose with my current mech I get 140k C-bills per match. Yea, I like to melt mechs=)
I do agree that the review was very biased against actually learning how to pilot and this probably comes from my playing the game for over a year, but suck it up. Once you get good at the game it is very fun. Just not when getting stomped each game. When I started playing my K/D ratio was a whopping .54, seriously. Got it up to 2.1 now, took me a long time, but I found my best mech and love it.
I do feel the release was very pre-mature, CW and UI 2.0 should have been in at release, but it is still a fun game. I'd give it a 5.4 as well, but my reasons would be different than the reviewers.
I also have been a fan of the mechwarrior franchise for some time now, have even worked on a title or two in my time and I have yet to see any of any of the titles ever really address the world that has been built around the machines. Repeatedly there have been references to all kinds of houses and squads and governments, etc... even stabs at pilot building, but none of it has ever played out.
As for this game, I agree with the reviewer 100%. He hits on the nail pretty much everything to do with this current release. I went into it fully knowing how to operate a mech, which this game holds true to in just about every way, and I still found it a bit cumbersome to build and upgrade one once I got inside the bay. And that thing on variants is about as confusing as any potential credit waster ever was as you literally have to spend credits, that are not easy to earn, in order to figure it out unelss someone tells you what is going on.
I also agree with the guy a few responses in who says that it was much fun earlier on in the beta than it turned out to be at the end. All of the things that were changed and removed were the exact things that, learned over time, would have been the most rewarding differentiation between hack driver and real enthusiasts.
So lets see, as old as I am I do recall other MechWarrior games released in the mid 1990s. 50 bucks, but you got the whole full campaign game. The reason we see a lot of F2P games like this is one of two things, 1) Cost to much to make nowadays a game with full single player campaign with multiplayer maps and Sell it for $50 2) Make it "F2P" because the revenue model generates more cash with less game, thus you as a consumer pay more on average and get less on average.....
I am going with point #2. Why? MechWarrior 2, So upgrade the graphics add multiplayer functionality, make some modifications that's it. Sell it for $50 bucks, a lot more people nowadays have a computer than in 1995, and with better development software/tech to do more work at a faster pace, it can be done with less manpower. And a ton of cash can be made
Really http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MechWarrior_2:_31st_Century_Combat what more does MechWarrior online offer that this game does not other than the Graphics and a few other minor features. Granted it was a single player game, with no multiplayer, But MWO is Multiplayer that's it!
I can see back in 1995, that it took a lot of devs to make that game, and they still made a profit, this Multiplayer only MechWarrior online is joke.......At least do more than just maps and mechs
Meh, tried it and did not care for it, and I am an old school, hard core Battletech fan. I would love to have seen an MMORPG based in this world, but no luck there. This is just a lobby based, mediocre F2P hunk.
I think everyone wants a piece of the WoT pie, and is doing anything they can to try and get a slice.
The gameplay is really fun, I really love it, but that's all there is to this game. The big picture is missing completely and there's no story, just two skirmish game modes and that's it.
And ofcourse, this game is not an MMO, anyone who tells otherwise dont know what they are talking about. It's not a bad thing to not be an MMO, I just dont understand the frothing need to drop every single online game into the MMO box now.
Only thing massive in this game is the mechs, other than that it's a simple small scale skirmish shooter. The maps are not massive, the player numbers á match are not massive, the matches last aprox. 10 minutes, there's nothing persistant and no metagameplay of any sorts.
Gareth, have you ever played a MechWarrior game before playing MW Online? I have. Like 10 years ago, and when I joined my first match in MW Online I've found the same controls and mech physics as before, same weapon management, same tactics. It's like riding a bike. Once you've learned it you'll never forget how to do it. So, why do we need a tutorial for riding a bike? Most MW online players learned to pilot a mech almost 20 years ago. Newcomers you say? If the can't learn such simple things as how to use throttle control or how to turn your torso then maybe they should go play something else like Hawken or TF2. This game wasn't made for common FPS or MMO crowd. All because MW is more of a sim than a shooter with robots. And I hope it'll stay that way. Think of it as World of Tanks with robots.
This is a mech simulation that still keeps some flavor from awesome mechwarrior 2 and it is FREE and awesome. Lots of intelligence, patience and discipline required , you cant just run at somebody and frag em and expect to win... ... and warning this not even close to an MMORPG but if they were to add an out of mech aspect I would be down...The rating of 5.4 seems too low to me.
See you in game... Blakdice
Check out my band if you like music.. www.myspace.com/icrime
The thing I hated most about the game was its community. The forums, and in game, were full of whining entitled people. Some of the worst were the ones claiming to be in their 40's. The people that play the game ruined the entire game for me.
For some reason there is always a problem that I see companies run into with the Battletech IP - a lot of company seems to do it badly, very few actually did it right.
Activision did it properly with Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries (one of the best game in those days imo), and the Microprose subsequently fudged it up. And then Microsoft/MekTek did a good job again with Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, and then Piranha games fudged it up.
Then Microprose made an outstanding Battletech RTS called Mechcommander, and then Microsoft's MechCommander 2? not so good.
On RPG side, Westwood Studios did a decent RPG called Battletech: Crescent Hawk Inception, then subsequently did a not-so-good Cresent Hawk's Revenge
On tabletop games side the original tabletop was good, and then the post FedCom Civil War and Jihad period they release that stupid and inconsistent Dark Age era crap...
On TV show side Battletech did a terrible cartoon series...
Seems like there is a lack of consistency of quality on thier titles.
The MMOFPS genre is taking off. Not sure this game has enough MMO in it mind you to qualify for the title. What guy is not a mech fan? Looking at the posts some poor post launch decisions seem to have put nails in the coffin rather than push the game forward. So far the only MMOFPS I think is worth playing is PS2, hopefully that will change someday.
Comments
I love all the golds (Mechwarrior Online's term for people who have spent thousands on this game) in here desperately trying to rope people into their game.
Avoid MWO at all costs, unless you love Battletech, and I mean absolutely fanatically love it, it is NOT worth it at all, the irony is that the game is the way it is BECAUSE of guys like these coddling PGI with "OH NOO NEW PLAYERS DON'T NEED A TUTORIAL OR ANYTHING TO HELP THEM! ITS GOING TO MAKE THE GAME LIKE CoD IF YOU PUT IN A TUTORIAL! THE GAME IS FINE AS IT IS!" and look where it's gotten you now, desperate to sucker new players into a dying game.
You made your beds, now sleep in them.
There are certainly founders who are like that, but not most of us. I don't think those people matter anyway, its PGI's fault the game didn't have a tutorial not the players (as others have said, much like eve didn't have a decent new player experience for so long)- you can find elitist asshats like you describe in any online game spouting nonsense.
Anyway, it has a tutorial now. Don't expect it to make you good instantly, but hopefully it makes it easier to get started. I see a lot of people crying about how easy games are anyway, I thought people wanted a challenge for a more rewarding playing experience.
*points up* This person is not exactly impartial either. The game is by no stretch of the imagination dying and the core gameplay is good. That being said the UI needs A LOT of work and as i said as a new player things will be very rough if you go at it alone.
Now with that said there are several "guilds" that are open to new players no matter the level of experince or how much time you have to spend. So until a proper tutorial is in the game ask around a bit and run with a established group as that will improve your expreince massivley
This have been a good conversation
The review is poorly written, the game is bad not for those reasons, next time try a bit harder.
Toss this one into the ruined IP box next to SWOTR.
Lol yeah. I couldn't agree more that this game has nothing to do with MMO's. I have zero desire to play this game, but that shouldn't be a surprise as this is match made shooter with no real persistent world or really any MMO qualities.
an important point that many of the "a working and functional UI is not so important" guys here do not tell is:
a big part of MWO is modifing your big robot .... and you have to use this ugly, broken and uninformative UI
so it rightfully deserves every bad rating regarding the UI
an other important point i could not find here is one of the main problems of MWO
it is a shooting game where the shooting itself is broken -- fast moving mech have a "lag shield" and some mechs have broken hitboxes
Ugly, uninformative yes, but how is the mech lab broken? I've never had an issue with functionality, it is just poorly designed. You should be able to easily see how many free slots you have available while modifying a mech for example. Stats like arm movement and torso twist, which can change between variants of the same mech, aren't shown anyplace in the game at all, you have to go to forums or 3rd party sites for stuff like that.
lag shielding does happen. The weekend before last was terrible, seemed like every match was half spiders and jenners, if you can't beat them join them I guess. But that's the exception not the rule. They do deserve points off for this since when it does happen its extremely annoying. And when the lag shielding stops and you get to kill 4 lights in a single match with an Atlas its funny payback at least.
broken means
now you have to pay everytime for modifications if you change from single heatsink to double heatsink
and again if you change it back ... and again if you will build it in again
it is annouinced for UI 2.0 that this will be fixed ..... so that means it is now broken
oh and while we are at it double heat sinks are not 2x as effective as single heatsinks
it is only 1.4x effective ..... the developersers said it would be to powerfull if more heat could be removed faster and are selling heat removing devices for real and ingame cash at the same time
That would be broken if it wasn't intentional, but it is that way on purpose. They even explained the reasoning for having to pay every time you swap heat sinks or structure as you paying techs for service on your mech- kind of a RP reason for a major game feature but that's what they said. And they didn't say this would be removed, they said they are looking at it and think the pricing might not be in line with current cbill gain. You not liking a feature or disagreeing with the way the game is balanced doesn't make it broken. And btw, I happen to agree with you about the heat sinks and structure pricing.
edit: your wrong about the double heatsink issue and so was I. The engine internal sinks are 2.0, externals are 1.4. I still feel that the cooler mechs can run the more it will make anything other than high alpha striking assaults uncompetitive. link to info (first post under heat sink single vs double):
http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/100089-breakdown/page__pid__2798425#entry2798425
Hawken is a much better mech-based shooter. The mechs actually feel like mechs & not some sort of hovering vehicles, the developers behind it are by and large much more focused, open, and display a greater level of competence than Piranha ever has for sure. The graphics aren't cutting edge, but still look quite good. The sound is superior, the UI is much better, and the cash shop is much more reasonable & has managed not to stray too far into pay-to-win territory.
It's just overall a better game. A shame it doesn't seem to get any attention on this site though; why is that?
I am still trying to figure out the math here.
The rating are :
6
6
7
5
That all equals 24.. then you divide the number of entries into that number... I get a 6. Where the hell is the other rating of 4 at?
MWO isn't bad to play. All the third person doom and gloom,,, whatever... what you gain in a few more degrees of field of view, you lose with loss of the mini map and a goofy camera floating around you.
Just dont use the cash shop, and the game is entirely playable without spending a dime, and you get the bigger mechs with all the fixins.
Page 2? Flip the page and you get
4
4
6
Total 38, divided by 7 = 5.4
But I also agree with you, MWO is fun to play and I've been putting a bit too much time into it lately. The game is free to play, meaning you do not have to spend a cent to get a very functional playing session. Even Atlas', double heatsinks, artemis and all the rest of the fixins can be purchased with C-bills attainable with each match.
Hell, even when I lose with my current mech I get 140k C-bills per match. Yea, I like to melt mechs=)
I do agree that the review was very biased against actually learning how to pilot and this probably comes from my playing the game for over a year, but suck it up. Once you get good at the game it is very fun. Just not when getting stomped each game. When I started playing my K/D ratio was a whopping .54, seriously. Got it up to 2.1 now, took me a long time, but I found my best mech and love it.
I do feel the release was very pre-mature, CW and UI 2.0 should have been in at release, but it is still a fun game. I'd give it a 5.4 as well, but my reasons would be different than the reviewers.
I also have been a fan of the mechwarrior franchise for some time now, have even worked on a title or two in my time and I have yet to see any of any of the titles ever really address the world that has been built around the machines. Repeatedly there have been references to all kinds of houses and squads and governments, etc... even stabs at pilot building, but none of it has ever played out.
As for this game, I agree with the reviewer 100%. He hits on the nail pretty much everything to do with this current release. I went into it fully knowing how to operate a mech, which this game holds true to in just about every way, and I still found it a bit cumbersome to build and upgrade one once I got inside the bay. And that thing on variants is about as confusing as any potential credit waster ever was as you literally have to spend credits, that are not easy to earn, in order to figure it out unelss someone tells you what is going on.
I also agree with the guy a few responses in who says that it was much fun earlier on in the beta than it turned out to be at the end. All of the things that were changed and removed were the exact things that, learned over time, would have been the most rewarding differentiation between hack driver and real enthusiasts.
So lets see, as old as I am I do recall other MechWarrior games released in the mid 1990s. 50 bucks, but you got the whole full campaign game. The reason we see a lot of F2P games like this is one of two things, 1) Cost to much to make nowadays a game with full single player campaign with multiplayer maps and Sell it for $50 2) Make it "F2P" because the revenue model generates more cash with less game, thus you as a consumer pay more on average and get less on average.....
I am going with point #2. Why? MechWarrior 2, So upgrade the graphics add multiplayer functionality, make some modifications that's it. Sell it for $50 bucks, a lot more people nowadays have a computer than in 1995, and with better development software/tech to do more work at a faster pace, it can be done with less manpower. And a ton of cash can be made
Really http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MechWarrior_2:_31st_Century_Combat what more does MechWarrior online offer that this game does not other than the Graphics and a few other minor features. Granted it was a single player game, with no multiplayer, But MWO is Multiplayer that's it!
I can see back in 1995, that it took a lot of devs to make that game, and they still made a profit, this Multiplayer only MechWarrior online is joke.......At least do more than just maps and mechs
Meh, tried it and did not care for it, and I am an old school, hard core Battletech fan. I would love to have seen an MMORPG based in this world, but no luck there. This is just a lobby based, mediocre F2P hunk.
I think everyone wants a piece of the WoT pie, and is doing anything they can to try and get a slice.
The gameplay is really fun, I really love it, but that's all there is to this game. The big picture is missing completely and there's no story, just two skirmish game modes and that's it.
And ofcourse, this game is not an MMO, anyone who tells otherwise dont know what they are talking about. It's not a bad thing to not be an MMO, I just dont understand the frothing need to drop every single online game into the MMO box now.
Only thing massive in this game is the mechs, other than that it's a simple small scale skirmish shooter. The maps are not massive, the player numbers á match are not massive, the matches last aprox. 10 minutes, there's nothing persistant and no metagameplay of any sorts.
LOL a page 2, that would explain it LOL!
I read page 1, heh.
This is a mech simulation that still keeps some flavor from awesome mechwarrior 2 and it is FREE and awesome. Lots of intelligence, patience and discipline required , you cant just run at somebody and frag em and expect to win... ... and warning this not even close to an MMORPG but if they were to add an out of mech aspect I would be down...The rating of 5.4 seems too low to me.
See you in game... Blakdice
Check out my band if you like music.. www.myspace.com/icrime
For some reason there is always a problem that I see companies run into with the Battletech IP - a lot of company seems to do it badly, very few actually did it right.
Activision did it properly with Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries (one of the best game in those days imo), and the Microprose subsequently fudged it up. And then Microsoft/MekTek did a good job again with Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, and then Piranha games fudged it up.
Then Microprose made an outstanding Battletech RTS called Mechcommander, and then Microsoft's MechCommander 2? not so good.
On RPG side, Westwood Studios did a decent RPG called Battletech: Crescent Hawk Inception, then subsequently did a not-so-good Cresent Hawk's Revenge
On tabletop games side the original tabletop was good, and then the post FedCom Civil War and Jihad period they release that stupid and inconsistent Dark Age era crap...
On TV show side Battletech did a terrible cartoon series...
Seems like there is a lack of consistency of quality on thier titles.