Mechwarrior Online

Evil Hippy posts:

Mechwarrior online - http://mwomercs.com/game

i was pretty dead set against this as its first person shooter and i don't generally play those games but i have to admit - its pretty fun

currently the entire game is player vs player - you can drop solo and pug it and your team isn't sucketh or join up with teammates and drop together and still hope your team isn't sucketh

matches are timed and are finished within 15 minutes but most don't run over about 8

the one thing missing from the game from early mechwarrior games is the lobby to meet and group and challenge people  - this is currently being handled by teamspeak servers though  - i expect the lobby will be one of the first things finished for community warfare

they give you 12 mechs as trial mechs to try out the different weight classes and get a feel for what you want to pilot

these mechs are stock loadouts and aren't optimal loadouts at all

the real fun comes by buying the mechs you like and customizing them to your playstyle 

 wanna light people up from afar with LRMS - grab a stalker or catapult and go to town

want a nice fast little brawler - grab a hunchback or centurion

want a big slow mech that will killed by light mechs dancing around it - grab an atlas or awesome- this is just my opinion of course

wanna be a dirty clanner - get the hell off of here and hang your head in shame (i say this as i look at buying clan mechs)

anyway - the game is free to play and you grind for cash to afford new mechs

each match pays a set amount based upon if your team wins and what you accomplished in game (spotting assissts for missiles, kill assists - component destruction, saviour kills, kills)

oddly enough kill assists pay more than the actual kill and you will get a lot more xp for spot assists than kill assists

limiting factors in game 

the main limiting factor in game is that new accounts are restricted to 4 mech bays for mechs - basically you can only have four mechs 

however they do occasionally have challenges to win free mech bays such as kill ten opponents using a specified assortment of mechs (ie steiner mechs) and they will include the trial mechs you possess - i'm currently up to 7 mech bays through challenges

there are items that are available only for real cash - certain mech colors - certain mechs but you can still play the game without any of them

you also gain xp by piloting your bought mechs - this xp is spent on pilot upgrades that include making your mech cooldown faster or torso twist easier - torso twisting is essential in this game to spread damage over the entire mech as opposed to just one location as a lucky headshot or cored out center will end your mech really quick  -its also tactical to spread the damage out to the arms if possible and lots of pilots will install no weapons on one arm and use that as a shield - your upper body can turn independently from your lower so you might be running in one direction but firing in another

there will be some new content that will be available soon (soon is relative as this content was supposed to be released years ago during beta tests) with the first of it supposed to be released before year end - this community warfare enhancement will make belonging to a merc corps, or a faction such as liao or those dirty clanners actually have some purpose as there will be specified goals that the team is trying to accomplish

make sure your system will actually handle the game before downloading though as the frame rate per second will make the game unplayable on older machines

if you do download the game - there are three little clickables that popup on the screen under where it says download after you click download

click on the premium time one - the middle one - this will give you a bonus for a day to basically give you 50% more cash and xp on all games after you log in to the forum

they also give a cadet bonus of extra cash and xp for first 25 games played - this will net you anywhere from 8-10 million which is more than enough to buy your first mech - with premium time enabled it will push that total up to 13-14 million if you complete all 25 matches in a day

the best thing about the game though - no fn "dungeon master" basically cheating because his play group defeated the entire attacking army that he thought would send his players into a retreat from their base and then hot dropping an atlas into the middle of a bunch of broken down mechs in need of repair - yes i'm still pissed off about that gaming session after 20+years - i should just let it go - but i won't

Offworld Trading Company

A few months ago I heard about Soren Johnson starting a new indie gaming company on the Game Designers Round Table Podcast.  Soren Johnson is one of the main designers of Civilization III and IV and he was speaking about today's new avenues for crowd financing and digital distribution, e.g. Kickstarter and Steam.  He said it seemed the right time to strike out with a small game company - Mowhawk Games.  I was very excited then when he spoke about his love for M.U.L.E and how his company was working with Stardock Games to publish a loosely M.U.L.E inspired economic RTS called  Mars something something.

Well they have an actual name for it now and it's called Offworld Trading Company.  I am really hoping this will be as good as it sounds.  It sounds kind of like a RTS version of an 18xx game with an electronic brain, network play and pretty Mars backgrounds.  Like M.U.L.E, the narrative I am hearing brings together my love for planetary colonization stories with my love for a good vicious economic trading game.

Oh I do hope it somehow also captures that feeling of boldly colonizing those brave new worlds.
8 players with AI support sounds pretty swell, and if it plays in a couple hours like some glorious mutant StarcraftStockTicker baby, well then I think it will be a go-to game in our little group.  You can buy in now for access to play the alpha, and eventually it will hit Steam Early Access for a wider audience and then come out for real.

So here hoping it's as good as it might be.

Rails and Colossus

I finally looked up the java program that was  that was recommended to me at Hammercon 3 by our fiendish enabler friend K.S.


Rails is a java implementation of a bunch of 18xx games and I'm interested to try it out.  It either has or will
have play-by-email according to the developer page.  I am not sure it would be as much fun playing this kind of game offline without being able to curse and cajole the other players but it would be interesting to try.  Otherwise network play is the ticket here, much like Colossus/Titan having a computer do the calculation and item handling should speed up a long game into a reasonable evening length one.  Just managing the paper money will shave an hour off the game probably.  This client supports the most popular variant 1830 but also the Southern Ontario 1856 version we like so much.  Nothing like playing 1856 in Hamilton and then walking outside to see those old tracks snaking through the city.


As for Colossus, well that is a really good implementation and I have had fun playing it in the past.  Good interface and good network support.  I don't think I ever lost connection or had any problems with playing online.  Also it is a great way to learn Titan if you haven't played.  

Titan the Monster Slugathon - that should be enough to melt the hardest of hearts.