STOMPY ROBOT TIME! (Mechwarrior 5)

[Liare]

so there's not much on it yet, aside from the release date (September 10th, 2019) and the fact it's possibly going to be a epic store exclusive.





we're looking at a pre-clan invasion game, starting cca. 3015 and with a campaign ending on the eve of the clan invasion in 3049 (gee i wonder why) looks like it's going to be the MW2:Mercs style with a lot of procedurally generated content and hand crafted story missions, using all the assets from Mechwarrior Online, the launch roster is as follows.

Light Mechs.

Commando
Firestarter
Flea
Javelin
Jenner
Locust
Panther
Raven
Spider
UrbanMech
Wolfhound

Medium Mechs.

Assassin
Blackjack
Centurion
Cicada
Crab
Dervish
Enforcer
Griffin
Hunchback
Kintaro
Phoenix Hawk
Shadow Hawk
Trebuchet
Vindicator
Vulcan
Wolverine

Heavy Mechs.

Archer
Black Knight
Cataphract
Catapult
Champion
Dragon
Grasshopper
JagerMech
Marauder
Orion
Quickdraw
Rifleman
Roughneck(bit of a wtf per PGI's own fluff, but it could get retconned)
Thunderbolt
Warhammer

Assault Mechs.

Annihilator
Atlas
Awesome
Banshee
BattleMaster
Charger
Corsair
Cyclops
Hatamoto-chi
Highlander
King Crab
Marauder II
Nightstar
Stalker
Victor
Zeus

the observant among you will have spotted several Wolf Dragoon exclusive designs in there, including the Flea and Marauder II, so everybody's favorite pack of furry clanners are undoubtedly going to play a role somewhere, beyond that the time range encompasses the entire technological renaissance the helm core brought, meaning as the campaign goes on goodies like double heat sinks, gauss rifles and pulse lasers are going to go from "LOLWAT" levels of rare to being available in limited quantities, most units still ran with 3025 era tech at the eve of the clan invasion so it's not going to be massively common to see monsters like the NSR-9J Nightstar, but they're going to be out there.

the big conflicts and events of the period it spans are the following

2866-3025(ish) Tail end of the 3rd succession war
3014-3015 Tail end of the Marik civil war
3022 the formation of the Federated commonwealth and the Concord of Kapteyn.
3020-3026(ish) Aurigan civil war
3028 The battle of Misery, and the Dragoon Kurita "private war"
3028-3030 the 4th succession war
3029 St. Ives Compact and Tikonov Free Republic formed as buffer states out of formerly Capellan worlds, this is the first stirrings of what would become the "Chaos march" later.
3030-3031 Duchy of Andurien ceceeds from the FWL, joint Andurien-Canopian invasion of the Capellan confederation
3034 the Free Rasalhague Republic is formed as part of backroom dealings between House Kurita and Comstar, this marks the beginning of the Ronin war
3037 Duchy of Andurien is reintigrated into the Free Worlds League
3039 War of 3039, a decapitation attempt aimed at the Draconis Combine, it quickly ends up as a stalemate and is one of the smaller "large scale" conflicts of the era.
3041 AFFC formed, the largest standing armed force in the universe at the time. this is arguably the main contributing factor to the later Fed-com civil war. (TLDR: Steiners can't mech for shit)
3048 Comstar vessel Outbound light encounter the clans.
3049 the eve of the clan invasion

this is the sphere, of course, so there are always smaller regional conflicts you can get your appendage wet in, shit hits the fan from around mid 3049 to 3052 with the clan invasion, followed by Op. Bulldog in 3059-3061 and then, alongside the fedcom civil war in 3065 the blakist party starts in the Chaos march, the first nuke is not deployed until 3067 after the dissolution of the star league, but that's all coming later, i hope.

Reddit AMA part 1
Reddit AMA part 2

[RazoR]

i have chipped in at the highest tier earlier because i'm a dumb alcoholic

will attempt to sell my PGI acct if it goes EGS and pirate the game

[Liare]

singleplayer mechwarrior games is like, the one thing that turns me into a giddy 12 year old.

i keep MW4 and MW3 around just to scratch the itch when it comes up, but this looks like it's going to be amazeballs.

[VARRAKK]

Old vids, and nothing new to show us is not a good sign.

[Liare]

Old vids, and nothing new to show us is not a good sign.

and the next AMA has been pushed to the 26th, i suspect it's getting pushed 1-2 months, but they have to release before 2020 when the licence lapses.

[mewninn]

I bet you they can't wait that long. They're a small outfit and they've been burning money on MW5 development for years now

[erichkknaar]

so there's not much on it yet, aside from the release date (September 10th, 2019) and the fact it's possibly going to be a epic store exclusive.

checkmate nerds.

[Lilalaunebör]

Well, i just wont buy it then.

The first video linked above also had boring environment, the second was a bit better but not by much. The flamers look like propane torches. The missiles all in one swarm look shit compared to the old "stream of rockets". The gameplay was all circlestrafing, something the old ones are also guilty of but sometimes to a lesser degree. Basically, it looks like Carmageddon when it should be metal knights jousting.

My biggest nerd gripe is that if they cover 3015-3049 the player is basically locked in on a theme park ride. What ever happened to taking your time? Any one of the conflicts you linked could be a campaign. Unless the game (as in, story-driven content not procedural skirmishes) is 200 hours long, it cant possibly flesh out even one of them.

[Paradox]

The animation looks so bad

[Isyel]

Lol Mechwarrior nerds are some of the fucking worst. As proven again and again. Nbs.

[helgur]

This may be the second coming of mech Jesus, I'm still not touching it if it turns out to be a Epic store exclusive.

[RazoR]

I would literally play MW3 if it had a grand campaign as described. Problem is they have a high chance of fucking up both.

[depili]

Would probably play if it was on steam, the 1st person mech games have been nice in the past. But not installin epic for that one either.

[Liare]

Well, i just wont buy it then.

The first video linked above also had boring environment, the second was a bit better but not by much. The flamers look like propane torches. The missiles all in one swarm look shit compared to the old "stream of rockets". The gameplay was all circlestrafing, something the old ones are also guilty of but sometimes to a lesser degree. Basically, it looks like Carmageddon when it should be metal knights jousting.

My biggest nerd gripe is that if they cover 3015-3049 the player is basically locked in on a theme park ride. What ever happened to taking your time? Any one of the conflicts you linked could be a campaign. Unless the game (as in, story-driven content not procedural skirmishes) is 200 hours long, it cant possibly flesh out even one of them.

a large part of the problem of the whole thing devolving into circle strafing is the weapon ranges, the tabletop has the same fundamental problem unless you're rocking clan gear without Zellbrigen.

as the last video indicate, you're not going to be tied into a specific war or anything of the like, it's events that are going to happen and create contracts you can play on top of the usual "crop" so say during the 4th succession war, there's going to be a lot of contracts in the Capellan march/Capellan confederation area, but there is a separate storyline playing out alongside the broader inner sphere. they've indicated it works roughly like it does in Battletech in that regard. (i half expect it's some mercenary company rivalry thing)

The animation looks so bad

they aren't as good as those of Mechwarrior 4 tbh.

I would literally play MW3 if it had a grand campaign as described. Problem is they have a high chance of fucking up both.

that's why i didn't preorder, this thing has awesome potential, but it's PGI, i'd like to see it delivered first.

[rufuske]

I fully expect it to be shit. If proven otherwise it's an instant buy for me.

[VARRAKK]

Hope it will be playable, then I get another game to use my new Dual Stick/HOSAS setup on.

[Sandzibar]

Will it have a MW2 quality soundtrack? Im guessing hard no.

[Approaching Walrus]

Will it have a MW2 quality soundtrack? Im guessing hard no.

Don't you mean mechassault 2 quality? Papa roach or gtfo



nothing says battletech more than white trash rock

[Liare]

did anybody actually play mechassault tho?

i have no relevant content to add, so have a MW3 intro.

[Eshnala]

That MW3 opening cinematic brings back memories.

On a related note: Is there a video (or series of videos?) that explains the BattleTech lore (best in a tl;dr way) to a none-insider? I was always intrigued by it, but never did read it up.