as someone who has literally played every mech warrior/mech commander title ever produced, i think i qualify as a fan. even though those games did gloss over much of the history and lore of the inner systems and the clans, they were and still are very fun games to play. so i was very excited when i heard about mwo and i signed up for the beta testing. then i got an invitation to become a "founder". that's when i stopped giving mwo any of my attention. pre-beta, F2P game, and i should spend money on a game where all i've seen are artist concept drawings and glossy hype machine youtube videos? right, not gonna happen.
i'm shocked that a game where the dev's went for such an early cash grab didn't turn out to be even 1/2 as good as what was planned in those early pre-beta days.
Review is fair enough. I'd give it more or less the same. It's as if the whole MWO game is some sort of demo of something great but that great MMO isn't going to happen and what you see is all you get. Longevity and value is terribly low.
"Those bright (PLAY STAR TREK ONLINE) banners that (WORLD of TANKS ROLL OUT) advertise Piranha’s latest (NEVERWINTER PLAY NOW!) deals mask a clunky ( PLAY FORSAKEN WORLD NOW) and occasionally confusing interface(PWI SIRENS OF WAR PLAY FREE) that desperately needs an overhaul."
Free to play = content updates for the cash shop. Buy to play = content updates for the cash shop. Subscription = Actual content updates!
Its a decent FPTS at the moment. Launch screen does need some loving but the actual combat is pretty solid. I for one will be much more interested when they add in some of the persistant conquer the map features but when I have a short amount of time I love to drop in and blow stuff up. The review was fairly close to the mark but I think a bit low on the overall rating. It does require some skill, practice, thinking and luck to be good, so people with short attention spans and self worth issues should probably look elsewhere. If you like BT/MW combat this is your only choice and it is not a bad choice currently. We'll see what the future brings. Hopefully continual improvement.
I absolutely love the BattleTech universe, have been playing the tabletop game, and running my own mercenary unit in that universe -hey, I'm a gamer, it's what I do, hehe- since November 1984 when I picked up my first boxed set. BattleTech has been a big part of my life, ever since, not just as an enthusiast for the game, not just as a gamer, but because it's helped to shape my life in the most positive ways possible.
On October 30th, 2011, within five minutes of Piranha announcing MWO, I had set up my tabletop unit, Armageddon Unlimited. I had my account on the MWO forums set up before that, being probably the first or second guy, post-announcement, to have an account, beyond those who'd already been involved with the game for some time.
I ran AU from there until September 9th, 2012, when some horrible things took place, and I disbanded the unit. I have not really logged a full hour in my Founder's Catapult since then, but I keep up pretty readily on the forums, and can't seem to let this particular bug go.
However... as much as I love the BattleTech universe, and that should actually read LOVE, and as much as I want Piranha to succeed, because this universe is running out of chances -indeed, this may be the last one-, running out of life, I am at the point right now where I'm having a very difficult time remaining positive.
Piranha can pull this game back out of the fire it's now resting in, burning to pieces, but they have to do it fast, or there will be no game. Sometimes, it seems as though that is exactly what Piranha wants to do with this game. The reviewer, Gareth Harmer, is absolutely dead on, every single point he's made, and then some, are truly problematic, not the least of which is that PGI have stopped listening, and seem to no longer be following their own design pillars, anymore.
This saddens me, and I wish with all of my might I had the money to put a team together to do this game justice. A lot of us 'enthusiasts', for whom this game is a lifestyle, have put hundreds and thousands of hours, a labor of love for each of us, into the BattleTech universe, and it's as if PGI couldn't care at all about that. Sad, really, because it's so beautiful.
The reviewer got some details wrong (typical MMORPG review in other words).
Owning a mech doesn't let you earn XP, it's lets you spend XP in the Pilot Tree. You earn XP even with Trial mechs.
No persistent world? True, but should be fully rolled out in the next 6 months.
Hero mechs help in 1v1 etc. Not really. They do NOT have +% dmg bonuses etc, they simply have different hardpoints (ie where and what weapons can be attached). So instead of having 2 Ballistics slots in the arms, a Hero mech might have 1 Ballistic and 1 Missile in the arms. Better if you want a missile weapon, but sucks if you prefer ballistics. To me, seeing a Atlas DDC on the battlefield is not really much different from seeing a Boar's Head (Hero Atlas). They both have a variety of hard points but the DDC has ECM which makes it harder to scan to learn what it's carrying.
Is the game perfect? No. Is it fun? I think so. Am I saying this because I've invested hundred's of dollars like many of my buddies? Nope. I can't say I haven't spent a dime on this game, but the $10 I spent was for the charity they ran for the little girl who died of cancer. The mech that came with the donation was a Jenner which was a chassis I despised at the time, though I have since learned to love it and am actually about to get all the Elite skills on it.
It's a F2P title that gives you a lot to work with. You can play for a very long time, even with "only" 4 mechbays. You don't have to pay for anything to play and be competitive. Outside of the Hero mechs, which are not P2W by any standard, every item, weapon can be bought in game. Consumables you ask? In-game money ONLY. Yep you heard me, Mechwarrior Credits won't get you airstrikes and artillery barrages. No magic healing potions, no "golden ammo" that splatters opponents in one shot (unlike some games we know).
I am a big mech fan myself and still playing the good old mechcommander. Unfortunately this is a bad copy of World of tanks. I played the game few hours uninstalled...few months later tried again and uinstalled. Few weeks ago tried...uninstalled.
There is just smthg missing in the game. My light mech capturing the base all by himself wont even get any points close to any dps mech does. (even though the mission says capture the base, not damage as many enemies as much as you can)
I am playing WOT instead of this now, but I have high hopes, I will install this game and try again next year.
I played about 10 games in beta, and uninstalled. The game seemed incomplete, starting from terrible UI, to lack of any introduction to the game.
Combat was not too much fun, minimap was mess where you could hardly distinguish features, tons of lines and shapes, no clear indications of any objectives or even passable paths among buildings etc.
Graphics were bad. The review says they are great, maybe something changed. The maps I played were dark and unimpressive, and mechs were all dark grey and undistinguishable from one another.
You couldnt communicate to anyone, except in battle chat, and it was like playing single player game with bit smarter bots. Anyways, my impression was that the game was not worth playing and I uninstalled. When I did that, I got another last glimpse of incompleteness of this game. If your main drive is not C: the uninstaller doesnt work, lol.
Nice game, high learning curve, not intuitive. Not really for a casual player.
Personally I like riding a big mech and shooting some lasers. However, this game is focused much on team tactics, and not really for single player.
By that I mean, the only chance of your team actually winning if you're doing you own thing is if the other team is basically doing much worse than yours =D. ie. new players usually dies first.
Currently, I see no reason whatsoever to actually spend money in this game unless its for cosmetics purposes. Unless you're a hardcore fan and likes to collect mechs.
This game is so poorly made that players should come to only one conclusion - the developer is milking a die-hard fan base for some cash while providing a game that is orders of magnitude worse than Mechwarrior 3 & 4. It also costs a ton more money, unless you want to spend literally 1000s of hours grinding on random maps with a handful of mechs that are difficult to upgrade and with a mech lab that is awful to use - it cannot even save configurations for different mechs unless you buy all the weapons and components for each configuration.
Comments
as someone who has literally played every mech warrior/mech commander title ever produced, i think i qualify as a fan. even though those games did gloss over much of the history and lore of the inner systems and the clans, they were and still are very fun games to play. so i was very excited when i heard about mwo and i signed up for the beta testing. then i got an invitation to become a "founder". that's when i stopped giving mwo any of my attention. pre-beta, F2P game, and i should spend money on a game where all i've seen are artist concept drawings and glossy hype machine youtube videos? right, not gonna happen.
i'm shocked that a game where the dev's went for such an early cash grab didn't turn out to be even 1/2 as good as what was planned in those early pre-beta days.
Review is fair enough. I'd give it more or less the same. It's as if the whole MWO game is some sort of demo of something great but that great MMO isn't going to happen and what you see is all you get. Longevity and value is terribly low.
This is one of those games when after getting into closed beta and playing it for couple of hours you uninstall it and never come back.
In one sentence - cheap WoT ripoff with mechs."Those bright (PLAY STAR TREK ONLINE) banners that (WORLD of TANKS ROLL OUT) advertise Piranha’s latest (NEVERWINTER PLAY NOW!) deals mask a clunky ( PLAY FORSAKEN WORLD NOW) and occasionally confusing interface(PWI SIRENS OF WAR PLAY FREE) that desperately needs an overhaul."
Free to play = content updates for the cash shop. Buy to play = content updates for the cash shop.
Subscription = Actual content updates!
I absolutely love the BattleTech universe, have been playing the tabletop game, and running my own mercenary unit in that universe -hey, I'm a gamer, it's what I do, hehe- since November 1984 when I picked up my first boxed set. BattleTech has been a big part of my life, ever since, not just as an enthusiast for the game, not just as a gamer, but because it's helped to shape my life in the most positive ways possible.
On October 30th, 2011, within five minutes of Piranha announcing MWO, I had set up my tabletop unit, Armageddon Unlimited. I had my account on the MWO forums set up before that, being probably the first or second guy, post-announcement, to have an account, beyond those who'd already been involved with the game for some time.
I ran AU from there until September 9th, 2012, when some horrible things took place, and I disbanded the unit. I have not really logged a full hour in my Founder's Catapult since then, but I keep up pretty readily on the forums, and can't seem to let this particular bug go.
However... as much as I love the BattleTech universe, and that should actually read LOVE, and as much as I want Piranha to succeed, because this universe is running out of chances -indeed, this may be the last one-, running out of life, I am at the point right now where I'm having a very difficult time remaining positive.
Piranha can pull this game back out of the fire it's now resting in, burning to pieces, but they have to do it fast, or there will be no game. Sometimes, it seems as though that is exactly what Piranha wants to do with this game. The reviewer, Gareth Harmer, is absolutely dead on, every single point he's made, and then some, are truly problematic, not the least of which is that PGI have stopped listening, and seem to no longer be following their own design pillars, anymore.
This saddens me, and I wish with all of my might I had the money to put a team together to do this game justice. A lot of us 'enthusiasts', for whom this game is a lifestyle, have put hundreds and thousands of hours, a labor of love for each of us, into the BattleTech universe, and it's as if PGI couldn't care at all about that. Sad, really, because it's so beautiful.
~Colonel Kay Wolf, Armageddon Unlimited, (in limbo)
hahahahaha, Love it. Thank you sir, you made my night.
The reviewer got some details wrong (typical MMORPG review in other words).
Owning a mech doesn't let you earn XP, it's lets you spend XP in the Pilot Tree. You earn XP even with Trial mechs.
No persistent world? True, but should be fully rolled out in the next 6 months.
Hero mechs help in 1v1 etc. Not really. They do NOT have +% dmg bonuses etc, they simply have different hardpoints (ie where and what weapons can be attached). So instead of having 2 Ballistics slots in the arms, a Hero mech might have 1 Ballistic and 1 Missile in the arms. Better if you want a missile weapon, but sucks if you prefer ballistics. To me, seeing a Atlas DDC on the battlefield is not really much different from seeing a Boar's Head (Hero Atlas). They both have a variety of hard points but the DDC has ECM which makes it harder to scan to learn what it's carrying.
Is the game perfect? No. Is it fun? I think so. Am I saying this because I've invested hundred's of dollars like many of my buddies? Nope. I can't say I haven't spent a dime on this game, but the $10 I spent was for the charity they ran for the little girl who died of cancer. The mech that came with the donation was a Jenner which was a chassis I despised at the time, though I have since learned to love it and am actually about to get all the Elite skills on it.
It's a F2P title that gives you a lot to work with. You can play for a very long time, even with "only" 4 mechbays. You don't have to pay for anything to play and be competitive. Outside of the Hero mechs, which are not P2W by any standard, every item, weapon can be bought in game. Consumables you ask? In-game money ONLY. Yep you heard me, Mechwarrior Credits won't get you airstrikes and artillery barrages. No magic healing potions, no "golden ammo" that splatters opponents in one shot (unlike some games we know).
I am a big mech fan myself and still playing the good old mechcommander. Unfortunately this is a bad copy of World of tanks. I played the game few hours uninstalled...few months later tried again and uinstalled. Few weeks ago tried...uninstalled.
There is just smthg missing in the game. My light mech capturing the base all by himself wont even get any points close to any dps mech does. (even though the mission says capture the base, not damage as many enemies as much as you can)
I am playing WOT instead of this now, but I have high hopes, I will install this game and try again next year.
the combat and mech mechanics are good - and can be a lot of fun
But the rest of the game sucks - including but not limited too
- maps, some ok, a few bad ones that ruin it
- game types, the two game modes are crap, could have been thought up by a 2 year old.
- social system, what social system?
At the end of the day whie the combat can be fun the game itself is very very very shallow. Its a shadow of that this IP could be.
I played about 10 games in beta, and uninstalled. The game seemed incomplete, starting from terrible UI, to lack of any introduction to the game.
Combat was not too much fun, minimap was mess where you could hardly distinguish features, tons of lines and shapes, no clear indications of any objectives or even passable paths among buildings etc.
Graphics were bad. The review says they are great, maybe something changed. The maps I played were dark and unimpressive, and mechs were all dark grey and undistinguishable from one another.
You couldnt communicate to anyone, except in battle chat, and it was like playing single player game with bit smarter bots. Anyways, my impression was that the game was not worth playing and I uninstalled. When I did that, I got another last glimpse of incompleteness of this game. If your main drive is not C: the uninstaller doesnt work, lol.
Nice game, high learning curve, not intuitive. Not really for a casual player.
Personally I like riding a big mech and shooting some lasers. However, this game is focused much on team tactics, and not really for single player.
By that I mean, the only chance of your team actually winning if you're doing you own thing is if the other team is basically doing much worse than yours =D. ie. new players usually dies first.
Currently, I see no reason whatsoever to actually spend money in this game unless its for cosmetics purposes. Unless you're a hardcore fan and likes to collect mechs.