
Each ‘Mech comes with unique equipment that reflects the flavor and lore of the original board game.Įight all-new weapon systems can be utilized to destroy even the most formidable opponents in a wide variety of unique ways. Seven classic ‘Mechs from BATTLETECH’s 35-year legacy make their triumphant return along with the first completely new ‘Mech designed exclusively for this expansion. One Original and Seven Classic BattleMechs: Heavy Metal takes ‘Mech action to the next level with a brand new Flashpoint Mini-Campaign. New methods of destruction await as eight devastating weapons systems are now available to wreak havoc like never before. We cannot explain the quote at this point however.Eight new ‘Mechs have been added to the world of BATTLETECH, including seven classic designs from the original board game along with a never-before-seen ‘Mech created exclusively for this expansion. Stay tuned for clarification, but overall, it seems the game will maintain its free-to-play design. On Twitter, Ekman explained that the quote was misinterpreted, that a subscription is not required to play as a Merc unit, and that subscriptions will not separate players.ĭue to the Canadian Easter holiday following the end of GDC - where the interviews took place - PGI has opted to not respond right away and will wait until the weekend is over, meanwhile the pitchforks are raised in the forums. Immediately the MWO forums lit up, and moderators funneled the topic into a new thread which in the span of a day garnered over 100 pages of player fury, but not to worry. And we'll probably require them to have a premium time account, as a kind of dedication level."Īnd with that, free-to-play MechWarrior has seemingly entered on a path to pay-to-play, when it comes to the core game experience. Understandably, taken by itself, this statement would mean that PGI pulled a bait-and-switch with the community, detailing the community warfare features for over a year, just to place it behind a pay wall. We really want people who participate in this to be as engaged as possible. This is just to make sure there's not a flood of one-player corps. "We're looking at possibly charging a one-time setup fee. For the Merc Corps, here's where some tricky wording from Ekman caused a firestorm among the MechWarrior Online community: Players pick one of two (currently available) game modes and get a randomly selected map against random players. The lonewolf style of play is what the game currently is. These are the guilds, these are the clans, these are the guys who come together, band together, fight together and play together and actually want to control as much territory as they can through their actions." Their matches affect the universe, but indirectly. These guys participate in territory control in a more passive way. These are the great houses of BattleTech.

They belong to the universe, they're a part of the lore. Then we have factions, and factions are NPC factions. There's the lone wolf, the guy who doesn't care about role playing, being a part of any organzational structure whatsoever.

"We've identified three kinds of players.
#Battletech heavy metal date update
The third major update is one of the MWO cornerstone features that's been hyped since the game's announcement, but totally absent during the beta up until now, and that's Community Warfare, the meta game, which will introduce the galaxy map, factions, guilds, etc. Piranha Games creative director Bryan Ekman explains: And MechWarrior is not an easy first-person type of game to pick up for newcomers, thanks to the level of complexity required to customize and control a battlemech that doesn't always move in relation to where the player (the mech torso) is facing. The second major update is what Bullock says the company calls "UI 2.0" and it's a redesigned interface that caters toward helping new players stick with the game long enough to get over the learning curve, because once they do, they're usually hooked. Over the last two months, two new maps were added to the original mix of four, and both of them represent the largest maps in the game, built for 12 vs.
#Battletech heavy metal date full
So you'll have a full company of BattleMechs, which is BattleTech nerd talk for 12 mechs." But in the next 60 days, roughly, we'll be going to 12 versus 12. "Right now the game is 8 versus 8, so you have eight mechs per side.

Polygon posted quotes from an interview with Piranha Games president and cofounder Russ Bullock, who outlined three major updates on the road to releasing MechWarrior Online in full this summer.
