Mechwarrior Online

[Longknife]

Wondering if anyone else in the group plays this?

I used to be HUGE into mechwarrior years ago. Read most of the books, got into Mechwarrior 1 & 2 then when AOL came out with Mechwarrior Solaris as a MMP game I was on it constantly!

When MWO came out I had a crappy internet connection so didnt even bother then promptly forgot about it. Recently I was looking for a space game when Mechwarrior popped in my head so I went looking to see if maybe a new SP version of Mechwarrior had come out. Not finding one but tons of hits for Mechwarrior Online I decided to give it a go.

Holy shit am I hooked on it! I have been spending every free moment I have playing for about the last week.

For those not familiar with the genre MW takes place centuries in our future when battle are fought out using huge walking tanks for lack of a better description. These battles take place on all sorts of terrain from swamps to arctic regions to under water & even in outer space on the surface of moons.

The mechs themselves are very diverse from "lights" weighting roughly 25 tons to "assault" class bristling with particle cannons & long range misses. These behemoths can top 100 tons.
For myself I prefer the lights & mediums. I like the speed & agile nature of them. They still pack a pretty good punch but have weak armor instead using their speed as their armor. I have seen a well piloted light take out a assault by himself. 

These are the mechs that I own & operate typically.



From left to right they are the Myst Linx weight in at 25 tons, Arctic Cheetah, Adder, Kit Fox & Jenner. Moving into the Medium class are Nova, Viper, Shadow Cat & Stormcrow weighing in at 40 tons.

Another neat thing about MWO is you can pick your chassis & then modify it however you like to suit your play style. Some of these mechs I have setup as long range snipers. Others are close in brawlers & finally others still are harassment mechs. I use them to dash into the enemies lines make a few hits & dash out to take some of the heat of my team members.

Another neat aspect of this game is the role playing. There were allot of books written about this universe so the lore is very deep & rich. You can pick which house or clan you want to play for. Outfit your mech accordingly & put on their colors. You will note in the above pick all of my mechs are green. The is the color scheme of Clan Jade Falcon which I am a member of. Also all my mechs are whats called "omni mechs". They are the type used by the clans.

Anyway I have rambled enough. If any of you are already playing let me know, I would love to hook up with you & do some drops together. If you arent in it & like a game that is action packed & yet thoughtful I suggest you give it a try. This isnt just a twitch FPS. There is a huge planning & tactical element to it.
It is free to play but while not absolutely necessary there is a good chance you will end up putting some money into it if nothing else then to buy more mech bays (you start with only 4) but it isnt absolutely necessary. You need to have at least 4 mechs to compete in "Faction Play" (the role playing element) though but with wise planning & management you can get by without spending any money.
One last thing, once you become a actual clan member you get a piece of their daily income. Its not allot, at my rank I get 44 credits a day but that is the type of credit that equates to real money so you could save up & get the things that you need (a mech bay costs 300MC's)

If anyone has any questions fire away. I will freely give the good bad & ugly of this game & not just fanboy it.

[Attila]

I played for few months but no time for it,  I think also Stardog played this.

[JasonPratt]

I've played the Mechwarrior games since #2 (and computer Battletech games since the Crescent Hawk duology). Didn't get into MW0 because I frankly wanted MW5, but more because I didn't want to beta test the software (much less pay to be a beta tester).

Over the last couple of months, though, I've been messing around in it steadily. It's a good, stable game system now, and the devs keep it polished up with new mechs regularly appearing (though the maps get stale quick -- they need vastly more maps). I've been playing for free, but will spend some real money on it presently -- just have to discipline myself to save up for it! 

As Longknife said, you can play it somewhat like an FPS -- that's more true now than in the past when it was more sim-ish in its controls, although you can still play it that way. But it's a little slower and truly rewards good squad ("lance") and company cooperation. One nice thing that the older versions of the game had trouble getting across, is that light and medium mechs feel more integrated. You have to learn to fight with them in ways that make sense, as support for the big guns. The mech designs themselves show their roots in "real robot" anime, and Star Wars AT units, and they're quite glorious to strap onto one's back!

[Longknife]

I have already put a fair bit of money into it even if you dont include the new Razer mouse & keyboard I bought just to make manipulating all the controls easier.

You dont HAVE to spend money & honestly the edge premium mechs give you is minuscule. The reason I bought mechs is because my time is valuable to me. I dont want to have to spend days grinding out missions to have enough c-bills to buy the mech I want.

There is a new skill tree coming at the end of this month. It is supposed to change the face of the game allowing people to create truly custom mechs in their abilities & you can even have vastly different mechs based on the same chassis depending on what attributes you want to spend your XP on. From what I have heard there will be 200+ skills you could potentially use but only up to 75 are allowed per mech. This should totally shatter the current meta & transform the game in ways not yet known. We are excited about it though. You will no longer be able to glance at a mech & KNOW what you are up against.

[JasonPratt]

I'm a little surprised the DoWs haven't set up a merc team. It may be sci-fi, but the tactical teamwork and customization are very nice.

[Asid]

I'm a little surprised the DoWs haven't set up a merc team. It may be sci-fi, but the tactical teamwork and customization are very nice.

Time...
Organisation...
Many other great games...
Time....

[Nitai]

i do play some, almost got enougth for my 3rd timberwolf... i think progression is a bit slow but it might just be me being bad... also one of the first games i played was i think called earthsige 2 which is also a mech game, but i was like 4 years old so i never even got past the half of the first level... i really like mechs and i am looking for some co op mech game, i heared there's a co op mod for mw4 black knight rolling around, if you wanna give a try to getting that working i'd love to play that together! another option is mechwarrior liveing legends, which is also pretty cool...