Mechwarrior Online Goes 1.0 in September

[Andy Chalk]

Mechwarrior Online Goes 1.0 in September

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After a lengthy and successful open beta, the free-to-play Mechwarrior Online finally has a full and proper launch date.

It's easy to forget that Mechwarrior Online is still in open beta. It's had a good run; since the open beta began, players have collectively sunk more than 9.6 million hours into the game (that's just shy of 1100 years), during which time they've blown up nearly 47 million mechs, destroying three billion tons of virtual metal worth 18.3 billion C-bills.

But all good things must come to an end, and so it is that the open beta is set to wrap up in a couple of months - on September 17, specifically, at which point Mechwarrior Online will finally achieve the long-awaited 1.0 mark, making it officially live.

Since there's not much else to say about it, here are a few more trivial yet amusing numbers with which to fill space: The Mechwarrior Online player base has earned 10.1 trillion C-bills in open beta action so far, firing 12,623,214,618 missiles (both LRM and SRM, one would assume), 2,451,270,519 laser blasts and 3,221,164,029 autocannon rounds along the way, although all those figures will have increased by the time you read this. The amount of energy expended through laser fire - if laser fire was in fact a real thing - would be enough to power 87 million homes for a month.

Okay, it's not the most interesting collection of stats in the world. The important thing is that giant fighting robots are cool, and if you want to get in on the Mechwarrior Online action while the open beta is still live, you can do so at mwomercs.com [http://mwomercs.com/landingpad].


Permalink

 

[fix-the-spade]

This game's okay but it's absurdly grinderific, each individual model of each mech needing weapons bought individually, plus some upgrades being non reversible without paying again.

Plus to actually get access to half decent mechs prepare to play dozens of matches or lay down money and then play dozens of matches. The underlying mech combat is pretty good but the rest of it embodies the consumer unfriendliness of a lot of F2P games.

Everybody buy Crysis and download living Legends, it'll only cost you a tenner and it's much better!

 

[Nuttydwarf]

This game's okay but it's absurdly grinderific, each individual model of each mech needing weapons bought individually, plus some upgrades being non reversible without paying again.

Plus to actually get access to half decent mechs prepare to play dozens of matches or lay down money and then play dozens of matches. The underlying mech combat is pretty good but the rest of it embodies the consumer unfriendliness of a lot of F2P games.

Everybody buy Crysis and download living Legends, it'll only cost you a tenner and it's much better!

^this is the main reason why I quit playing...that and the LRM missile-o-rama

 

[webkilla]

I toyed around with it several months ago - haven't touched it in quite a while

Fix is right though: To advance in the tech-tree for one mech you have to level THREE of the same type (not the same model) to unlock the next tech tree tier.

...and you only get four mech slots for free IIRC - so if you want, say a light, a medium, a heavy and an assualt mech to play around with, then you'll never get beyond the bottom of the tech tree.

and again, IIRC, you can only get more mech slots for real cash.


I find it quite silly that F2P games aren't rampantly copying TF2's highly successful business model. There shouldn't be a pay-to-win option (In that if you buy the extra mech slots and buy the mechs that give 10% extra xp you can level up faster AND get access to better tech upgrades)

F2P should always emphasize that the cash-buy option is to dodge the grind and for cosmetic items. Giving players the option to pay for mechs that generate 30% more in-game currency to buy weapons to shorten the grind, sure, that's nice. 10% more xp to shorten that grind? Also nice? But limiting free players so they cannot get access to the top tier tech upgrades unless they pretty much only play one type of mech... that's not really a good model

*goes to check the game to see if I remember right about the mech slots. 25 patches... nope.avi*

 

[Karadalis]

up faster AND get access to better tech upgrades)

Everyone has the same access to tech from the get go... not much of a redeeming quality for this mess of a game.

Not a single feature they promised their community has made it in yet... no community warfare.. no new game modes.. no 12 vs 12 matches.

Ontop of that they seem to be only capable of introducint cash shop items without any bugs. Everything else they implement is either hopelessly broken, completly overpowered, or outright useless.

They outright lied on several ocasiions and broke promises they made to their founding members about things like coolant flushes and 3rd person view... wich when first talked about was said would never make it in the game... then it was only to help train newbys... and now it will become the standard game mode and 1st person only will be called "hardcore" mode.

You cannot believe a single word the devs say, making promises about comming content being implemented, but when the deadline they set themselves draws near not a single word is said again and the content is pushed back half a year without so much as informing the people on their own forum.

Their community actually has to get information about upcomming changes to the game from twitter, facebook and various interviews with gameing websites.

All in all this game is a trainwreck and people are loosing interest rather quickly now.. thats why they introduced another founder style package.. another thing they claimed they would never do again when they offered the original founders packages.

PGI is a trainwreck of a developer who cant get anything done right, halfassing most of the time and outright not knowing how to work with the cryengine...

 

[Atmos Duality]

When I gave it a try, the game was basically this:

-Solo queue up, get matched against lances of fully tuned mechs (with ECM out the wazoo).
Lose.
-Repeat.

The matchmaking was fucking horrific. Brand new accounts being matched against 3 and 4 queues with mechs that were just flat out objectively better.

I gave it a week, got frustrated, and found something better to play.
So unless those issues have been addressed, I'm probably not touching MW again.

 

[catalyst8]

So-called 'Free to Play' games rarely are. Like this one they're usually Pay to Win, & as such are crusty spunk stains around a mangy dog's worm infested arsehole - wholly unappealing.

I've always enjoyed mech games, from the Battletech board game & arguably Car Wars on my Spectrum in the '80s, to the various subsequent mech incarnations on the Amiga & the PC (Mechwarrior 2 was truly outstanding!).
It's not the money, I'd willingly pay a monthly subscription of £15 or £25 but unfortunately a game where players simply pay money for an advantage over one another isn't competitive it's just dull & tedious.

It quickly became apparent that Mechwarrior Online was Pay to Win so was uninstalled immediately. What a disappointment, but also what a wasted opportunity for them.

Spoiler

 

[Karadalis]

So-called 'Free to Play' games rarely are. Like this one they're usually Pay to Win, & as such are crusty spunk stains around a mangy dog's worm infested arsehole - wholly unappealing.

I've always enjoyed mech games, from the Battletech board game & arguably Car Wars on my Spectrum in the '80s, to the various subsequent mech incarnations on the Amiga & the PC (Mechwarrior 2 was truly outstanding!).
It's not the money, I'd willingly pay a monthly subscription of £15 or £25 but unfortunately a game where players simply pay money for an advantage over one another isn't competitive it's just dull & tedious.

It quickly became apparent that Mechwarrior Online was Pay to Win so was uninstalled immediately. What a disappointment, but also what a wasted opportunity for them.

Spoiler

Sorry but what you wrote here is wrong.

There is simply no pay to win in MWO.

A medium laser is a medium laser is a medium laser.

They even give new players a huge income boost for the first 20 games or so so that they have enough cbills to buy up to an assault mech or several lighter ones.

MWO is a trainwreck of a game but it surely is not pay to win... there is only some weaksauce consumables that no one uses because they are crap that cant be bought with ingame money... the rest is fully available for non paying costumers.

And who in their right mind spends real money on mechs in that game anyways?

 

[Smooth Operator]

I think I'll still wait for version 2.0 or 3.0 because sofar it was severely lacking on all ends.

 

[mgbon2]

If you're after a mech fix, check out MWLL for this weekend?s event [http://forum.mechlivinglegends.net/index.php/topic,19301.0.html]. It's free, balanced and most importantly doesn't punish newcommers... except for the learning curve =]

 

[catalyst8]

So-called 'Free to Play' games rarely are. Like this one they're usually Pay to Win, & as such are crusty spunk stains around a mangy dog's worm infested arsehole - wholly unappealing.

[etc]

Spoiler

Sorry but what you wrote here is wrong.

There is simply no pay to win in MWO.

A medium laser is a medium laser is a medium laser.

They even give new players a huge income boost for the first 20 games or so so that they have enough cbills to buy up to an assault mech or several lighter ones.

MWO is a trainwreck of a game but it surely is not pay to win... there is only some weaksauce consumables that no one uses because they are crap that cant be bought with ingame money... the rest is fully available for non paying costumers.

And who in their right mind spends real money on mechs in that game anyways?

The hero mechs are good examples e.g. the FB. Can't get decent gear through normal in-game currency? OK, pay real money & have one instead.
Regardless of the degree of advantage a player gets by spending real money over someone who doesn't, it's an advantage bought with actual cash rather than a reward from success in the game. Certainly the Pay to Win element in MWO isn't as conspicuous as something like World of Tanks, but it's still there.

 

[Saulkar]

Nobody touches upon the caustic community. There are things that are downright broken in this game that the community and now the developers are defending as intended game mechanics! It does not matter how legitimate your complaint is, you are told to stop whining and learn to adapt/L2P. This game needs some major overhauls, one of which proposed right here: http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/122169-forget-heat-penalties-a-comprehensive-balance-solution-to-alphas-convergence-poptarts-boats-and-clans/ and the developers have gone out of their way to avoid acknowledging this guy's brilliant ideas! Furthermore the jumpjets and physics as they are right now break innumerable legitimate strategies and don't you dare shine light on them, that makes you a baaaaaaaaaad person.

Jesus, if it were not for the few like Homeless bill and the odd, intelligent newcomer I would be done with this game.

 

[csoloist]

Old MW/BT fan here... Mechwarrior Online is absolutely the worst thing that could've happened. Far worse than Mechwarrior being dormant, we now have a game that's actively poisoning folks against the franchise. If it'd stayed dead at least we might've gotten a (*mostly* complete) MW Living Legends in a few years.